The FBI’s investigation into the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump has been hampered by challenges in accessing encrypted data from the suspect’s digital devices. FBI Director Christopher Wray disclosed at a recent hearing that while the bureau had accessed some content from Thomas Matthew Crooks’s devices, encryption presented significant obstacles.
Wray highlighted the difficulty posed by encrypted platforms like Signal, WhatsApp, and Proton Mail, which secure communications between sender and recipient. “The FBI complains about going dark. When you look at the statistics on how often they intercept communications, this is the golden age of surveillance,” remarked Greg Nojeim, a lawyer at the Center for Democracy and Technology, during a virtual meeting hosted by Demand Progress.
The meeting focused on encryption’s role in protecting digital information in a world where personal, work, financial, and health data are all online. Wray mentioned that while the FBI had accessed Crooks’s phone, it faced “significant technical challenges” due to encryption.
The FBI had initiated a “legal process” with 30 companies to gather information, waiting on responses from 18, including encrypted platforms, according to FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate.
Hajar Hammado, a senior policy adviser at Demand Progress, warned that the FBI might seek the next president’s help to undermine encryption. “Given the FBI’s long history of working to undermine end-to-end encryption, it’s very likely they will ask the next president to help them do it,” Hammado told the Washington Examiner.
Former Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who joined the privacy meeting, recalled the 2015 San Bernardino shooting case where the FBI sought Apple’s assistance to unlock an iPhone. Apple resisted, but the FBI eventually unlocked the phone through a third party, Azimuth Security. In Crooks’s case, the FBI used Cellebrite, an Israeli firm.
Noah Chauvin, a law professor at Widener University, noted that law enforcement has consistently tried to pressure encryption platforms to create backdoors for government access. Goodlatte cautioned that such backdoors could lead to security vulnerabilities, making data susceptible to hacking by foreign adversaries or criminals.
The privacy advocates discussed legislative measures to safeguard encryption, including an amendment by Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) to prevent FBI funding for efforts to undermine encryption. This amendment, part of a congressional appropriations bill, will be considered after the August recess.
