The intelligence community’s top lawyer, Robert S. Litt, told colleagues in an August email obtained by the Washington Post that Congressional support for anti-encryption legislation “could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.”
So he advised “keeping our options open for such a situation.”
Litt, the general counsel in the office of the Director of National Intelligence, is well known for making flip comments. But in this case, his private observation offered insight into just how eager some officials are to come up with examples to support their argument that end-to-end encryption — which precludes law enforcement from intercepting communications between two parties — presents an imminent danger to national security.
The Post story was about the lack of momentum for legislation that would require firms to be able to unlock their customers’ smartphones and apps under court order.
A senior official granted anonymity by the Post acknowledged that the law enforcement argument is “just not carrying the day.” He told the Post reporters: “People are still not persuaded this is a problem. People think we have not made the case. We do not have the perfect example where you have the dead child or a terrorist act to point to, and that’s what people seem to claim you have to have.”
On Tuesday, Amy Hess, a top FBI official, told reporters that the bureau has “done a really bad job collecting empirical data” on the encryption problem. FBI Director James Comey has attempted to provide examples of how law enforcement is “going dark,” but none have checked out. Only Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has been able to provide an example of encrypted technology maybe blocking one possible lead in a murder investigation.
Caption: Robert Litt at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
This guy needs a history lesson. They tried to ban encryption already but Phil Zimmermann just printed the code in a book and it was protected by the 1st amendment. They would have to abolish the bill of rights first.
People do not rise up and cause trouble for other people just for the heck of it. People generally want peace, relative freedom, and to be left alone, wherever they live. The American government’s military has been “camped out” in the Mideast for nearly 25 years, using some of the former Soviet “stan” countries for military bases, to conduct military campaigns from. The people who resist American military presence form terrorist groups, trying to get the American military to leave. The “terrorists” are not the terrorist groups. The only real, true terrorist is the American government.
Any government that wants to collect everything, on all of its citizens, is not interested in allowing for the flourishing of democratic government: as is patently obvious by the actions of both our state and federal cabals of wealthy business tycoons masquerading as representatives of the citizens. And unless you substitute the definition of control for the definition of government, which almost all lawyers do automatically, this kind of surveillance/information gathering is closer…much closer…to war being waged by an elite group to turn America into a kind of ‘Gitmo’, than it has anything to do with government of, by, and for the people! In our larger cities we have a flourishing police state that uses violence and imprisonment to enforce and make plainly obvious for all to see just how powerful this police state is. They want us to know that resistance is futile…so they murder us and beat us down like dogs for their rich owners!
In the event of another catastrophic terrorist attack on us, the good Mr. Litt can be counted on ginning up disinformation to blame it on encryption no matter the facts.
It’s not only encrytpion that is a privacy issue.
The FBI and Police are being kitted out with a device that can detect you moving about your home. They use them without warrants too.
This is the net result of people just letting someone else do everything for them.
“can’t someone else do it”
Participation in power is the only true freedom. Marcus Tulius Cicero.
We don’t participate, voting every 4 years is not participation.
300 million Americans, take back your great country.
Sadly if you do not take an interest in government it takes an interest in you.
People say “well if I aint doing anything wrong”
Tell that to Ahmed who did nothing wrong.
What is the lessson? You do not decide if you are doing something wrong.
Encryption is important for your privacy.
If there is anything you ever wish to keep private, do not have it connected to the internet, plain and simple.
I wont even allow a smartphone in my home these days, I’d rather not be watched from these devices by pervert voyeuristic freaks at the CIA\NSA\FBI.
Speaking of the FBI, they are literally the gestapo these days/
This is another example of the BAR association being at the heart of this countries decline into an un-American state!
rrheard, where are you, you BAR association jock sniffer? Explain why the BAR is failing its duty? I hope you read this and respond so I can learn more ways to bullshit people……
Great piece Mr Froomkin and Ms McLaughlin!
Project for the New American Century
Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, September 2000, Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.
It won’t be that hard. All they need is to examine Ahmed Mohamed’s clock, claim it has been encrypted so they can’t tell the time and Congress will leap to outlaw encryption. The advantage of creating a climate of fear is that the threshold for a triggering incident goes way down. Any government seeks the maximum result with the minimum effort. So there’s nothing to worry about – a major catastrophe is not required.
Not in this case, it’s not as if they want a war this time, just to take away more of your rights.
They have perpetual war since 9\11 and the arms makers more than one former president warned us about currently are having their cake and eating it.
The majority terrorism is state sponsored terrorism.
Also some of the biggest crimes against people have been committed in the name of national security.
I am sure North Korea has National security at the core of it’s repression of society.
I do wonder, do North Korean police kill as many civilians as US police?
From what I saw of the Clock of Ahmed, it’s easily hacked. A good exploit for ODNI would be to rotate the body of the clock around the center of its longitudinal axis. This would have the effect of rendering the interface unreadable to Congresspeople, thus encrypting its data.
The danger is that NSA might get the idea to use this hack on its infrequent reports to the Intelligence Committee, thus blinding the only existing oversight of its activities. This would be unacceptable if we had a democracy.
I thought that very thing when I read the article.
The U.S. Constitution is a “wartime” charter designed to be followed during wartime with emergency clauses already built into the system.
The Framers of the Constitution were real tough guys unlike these bureaucrats, they didn’t scare easily or exploit things for their own personal gain.
I bet though there is no amount of evidence that will convince them that not allowing encryption is a really BAD idea. I mean, you don’t see the TSA ending their ‘TSA Approved Lock’ program even after the keys are available for 3D printing right off the Internet. The North Koreans could get ahold of a back door password and use it to push an automatic update (Tesla style) to make a couple of million Connected Cars throw on their brakes, without showing any brake lights, all across the country, all at the same instant, and they’d be saying that’s proof that encryption needs to be banned. I mean, they’re immune to any argument that doesn’t increase their own power … no matter what.
Yep!
Didn’t someone say that we needed “another Pearl Harbor event” to implement some document?
A couple of years before 9-11 if memory serves.
It was the Project for the New American Century, which included Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
The document you are referencing:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
The same Cheney that was secretly making money by dealing with Iran and Oil?
The same Cheney and Halliburton?
The same Cheney that told the US airforce to stand down?
I don’t do coincidence
Thats what they are waiting for. If it takes to long they might “slip one trough” just to have an excuse…
Boston “slipped” through the professional grasp of 20 +/- FBI agents and all 17 US agencies responsible for grooming maintaining and expanding the US Terrorist Watch List.
Lack of end to end encryption didn’t stop 9-11
“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
? Benjamin Franklin
As we’ve seen with every other proscribed product, end-to-end encryption will disappear from the markets of Earth once governments decide to make it illegal. Right? RIGHT??
that Congressional support for anti-encryption legislation “could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.”
So he advised “keeping our options open for such a situation.”
Busted for being the disgusting vulture that his words show him to be, Robert Litt might want to consider using encryption for his emailing.