They were simpler times.
Key evidence of a crime was on a piece of paper—somewhere—and the FBI could get a warrrant to search a home or business to find it and solve the crime.
Case closed.
Now the FBI says our phones, text messages, and devices are the modern day filing cabinets. And it should be allowed to search these things when an investigation requires it.
But there is a problem, the FBI says: there is a real and growing gap between law enforcement’s legal authority to access digital information and the technical ability to do so.
The FBI calls the gap between these two “Going Dark."
FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Congress that issues around device access and strong encryption are increasingly putting investigations at risk. On access:
"In fiscal year 2017, the FBI was unable to access the content of approximately 7800 mobile devices using appropriate and available technical tools, even though there was legal authority to do so. This figure represents slightly over half of all the mobile devices the FBI attempted to access in that timeframe."
And on the risks of criminals hiding their efforts through encryption:
"The exploitation of encrypted platforms also presents serious challenges to law enforcement’s ability to identify, investigate, and disrupt threats that range from counterterrorism to child exploitation, gangs, drug traffickers and white-collar crimes."
Think the FBI is trying to play the part of big brother here? The FBI says that's not quite right:
"Some observers have conceived of this challenge as a trade-off between privacy and security. In our view, the demanding requirements to obtain legal authority to access data—such as by applying to a court for a warrant or a wiretap—necessarily already account for both privacy and security."
So what do you think: where do we draw the line on privacy versus security?