FBI admits it wants access to even more smartphones

WASHINGTON — FBI Director James Comey told Congress on Tuesday that if the government succeeds in forcing Apple Inc. to unlock an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters, the case would establish a precedent that could be used to gain access to data in many more iPhones, an acknowledgement that runs counter to the agency’s earlier contention that the case is limited to a single device.

Testifying under oath to the House Judiciary Committee, Comey said he does not know how many phones state, local and federal law enforcement authorities want to open for investigative purposes, but said it’s “a lot.”

Apple, represented by general counsel Bruce Sewell, argued that the FBI’s demand that the Cupertino company write code to defeat the iPhone’s encryption would put all smartphones at risk and threaten Americans’ privacy.

“If Apple is forced to write a new operating system to degrade the safety and security in phones belonging to tens or hundreds of millions of innocent people, it will weaken our safety and security but it will not affect the terrorists,” Sewell said.

A court order to force Apple to give the FBI data access from an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters has opened a national debate over encryption and privacy that both sides agree has enormous consequences as more of people’s private information — from their personal correspondence to financial data — is stored on mobile devices.

The Obama administration has deferred to the FBI, even though its own advisory committee on cybersecurity concluded that the government should not try to “subvert, undermine, weaken or make vulnerable” encryption software.



[...] Comey said, no basement, no garage, no home, no physical hiding place, has been completely off limits to a search warrant.

Cybersecurity Professor Susan Landau of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute of Massachusetts testified that the FBI is still using 20th century technology in a 21st century world and urged the agency to adopt more high-tech strategies to combat crime, pointing to what national intelligence agencies are doing as an example.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Chris Finan, a former Obama administration cybersecurity official who is now the chief executive of Manifold Technology, a Menlo Park company that builds encryption technologies, said the conflict is already leading technology firms to create what he called “doomsday machines” that nobody can hack — not even the companies that make them.