FBI Quest for Smartphone Data Will Fuel Privacy Battle
In the battle over how much access law enforcement should have to your smartphone, don’t expect the government to be outsmarted without a fight.
FBI Director James Comey said as much Thursday in a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington, suggesting the agency might ask congress to force companies to provide what amounts to a “back door” to law enforcement to obtain password-protected data on targeted personal mobile devices.
“We’re hoping to start a dialogue with congress” on updating laws that require tech companies to comply, he told the audience.
But he might find more than the usual resistance on Capitol Hill these days, and not just from known privacy critics and libertarians. A White House advisory panel convened in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks about widespread government surveillance of Americans formally recommended that laws should “not in any way subvert, undermine, weaken or make vulnerable generally available commercial software.”
Moreover, typical law-and-order Republicans who might normally side with the FBI said they feel burned by government spying and want more assurances that Americans’ Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizures is protected.
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