FBI Director Begs Congress: Please Give Us Unlawful Backdoor Access to Americans’ Cellphones
When government agencies get blocked from being lawless, the whining is almost incessant. In other words, they don’t know how to do their jobs without violating the constitution. Director James Comey of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has requested Congress give the “FBI backdoor access into Americans’ cellphones” during his testimony regarding his agency’s budget.
Comey’s request comes after Apple and Google, last fall, announced new encryption standards that would protect their customers’ data. Not even Apple employees can access the data of its consumers. Comey argued these encryption safeguards will make it easier for criminals to “elude capture,” especially child pornographers.
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When Edward Snowden leaked the unconstitutional NSA spying on every American, in particularly the NSA’s “hoovering” of all Americans’ data to peruse after getting a “broad” non-specific so-called warrant through the FISA court, Americans and others around the world were stunned and outraged at the extent of the US government’s intrusion into the private lives and communications of individuals expressly against the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution. The backlash from the Snowden revelations evidently has made no imprint whatsoever on the FBI or any other government agency participating in the overt violations of Americans’ privacy. The FBI wants “backdoor” access into your personal property, aka your cellphone, under the auspices of catching child pornographers.
During Comey’s “whinefest” to the House Appropriations Committee, he said, “We’re drifting in to a place where a whole lot of people are going to look at us with tears in their eyes.”
Comey thinks this “default encryption” that the FBI cannot access is a “huge problem” that “runs afoul of the rule of law.”
Seriously? This man is actually going to accuse companies of encrypting devices in order to help protect their customers’ privacy from unconstitutional data/communication “hoovering” by government agencies as “afoul” of the rule of law. Evidently, Comey is not familiar with good old fashioned investigation, getting a warrant based on probable cause, and actually abiding by the law in the first place.
Comey, in a typical whiney pot calling the kettle black, struck at Congress using a two-legged approach. He basically accused companies like Apple of “subverting the law without conscience” and pulled the emotion card in detailing a hypothetical scenario where law enforcement might need information off an individual’s cellphone – the case of a kidnapped young girl but being unable to access the device.
“Tech execs say privacy should be the paramount virtue,” Director Comey lamented. “When I hear that I close my eyes and say try to image what the world looks like where pedophiles can’t be seen, kidnappers can’t be seen, drug dealers can’t be seen.”
Comey said it will only get “worse and worse.” “I think it’s going to require some sort of legislative fix. To have a zone of privacy that’s outside the reach of law is very concerning.”
In a warning to companies, Comey stated, “If you want to do business in this country, we’re about the rule of law.”
Someone please call the “Waaambulance” and get that man some cheese to go with his whine.
Mr. Comey, can you spell “Hyprocrisy” and “Hypocrite?” Do you know what those words even mean?
To even say the words “rule of law” when government agencies, the president, Congress and every blip in Washington is violating the rule of law is, to say the least, disgusting.
The absolute gall of these people is infuriating. It’s a good thing Mr. Comey didn’t have to work in the days of Al Capone and Eliot Ness where there was no digital world to “hoover,” no cellphones to rifle through or internet to troll. Amazing how the FBI managed to conduct investigations and catch criminals “back in the day,” isn’t it? However did they do it without having technology?
Especially interesting is Comey’s comment about having a “zone of privacy that’s outside the reach of law.” So, Comey thinks that government should be able to access any personal effects, papers, houses, or person at any time whatsoever without due process. Warrants are issued, in accordance with the law, to investigate that “zone of privacy” upon probable cause in accordance with the Fourth Amendment. The director of the FBI should know this.
With the director of the FBI requesting a “backdoor” into Americans’ personal property, Comey should have rock hard statistics to prove how valuable violating the basic right to privacy is when combating child pornographers, kidnappers and drug dealers. But, that was not the case. Comey insisted this was encountered every day in every area of the FBI’s work, but had no definitive numbers to offer the House Committee on how often encryption inhibited or thwarted work by the agency.
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt indicated at a Silicon Valley event last year that people who have criticized the encryption should have expected it to occur.
According to Schmidt, “After Google was attacked by the British version of the NSA, we were annoyed to no end, so we put end-to-end encryption at rest as well as throughout our systems, making it essentially impossible for interlopers of any kind to get that information.”
What’s also amazing is that a few representatives were sympathetic to Comey’s whiney case. However, many in the upper chamber “speculate such request has little chance of passing in the post-Snowden political climate, for both privacy and economic reasons.”
Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology stated, “Who in Europe is going to buy these newly compromised cell phones if Congress insists they be made with backdoors for US law enforcement?”
Americans are about as likely to consent to backdoor access of their cellphones about as much as James Comey will give “backdoor” access to his house, car, bank account, medical records and email to every citizen in the US. Of course, those Americans who contend “if you’re doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about” if the government sucks up everything about you probably wouldn’t mind at all. In fact, they’d probably sell your right arm to help Comey and the government snoops continue to violate the Constitution.
What escapes Comey is one little tidbit – if the government had not been indiscriminately gobbling up every smidgen of information from US citizens secretly against the Constitution, this would not be a problem as individuals would not have felt it necessary to begin encrypting everything. Had the government operated according to “the rule of law” instead of trampling the law, Comey would be able to access devices in extreme cases, such as kidnap victims where the cellphone was available.
Oh the irony of it all! The director of a government agency complaining about a problem created by government.
Just like gun control, this issue will keep coming around until Obama decides to decree by “imperial order” that Comey can have his ice cream cone in the form of backdoor access into your personal property. Remember, “by hook or by crook” the people will conform and the agenda will be implemented in order that the “transformation” of America will be complete. After all, it’s too much trouble to stop the unlawful behavior of government agencies as they have become accustomed to it and can’t function within the parameters of the law anymore.
