FBI Director Christopher Wray has used a congressional hearing organized after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump to launch another attack against encryption and use that as justification for the state of the investigation.
Appearing before the House Judiciary Committee this week, Wray was supposed to speak about the FBI’s investigation into this extremely serious incident, as well as about what the committee said is “the ongoing politicization” of the agency under his and Attorney-General Merrick Garland’s direction.
But Wray turned it into blaming encrypted apps and services for the pace of the investigation. Quite extraordinarily for a person who is supposed to be highly knowledgeable about security, the FBI chief came across as oblivious to how essential encryption is for people’s online security – from their bank transactions to their communications.
Instead, he complained that it is difficult to break into accounts on encrypted platforms, that is, to break encryption – a situation that the FBI head said has “unfortunately become very commonplace.”
He went on to claim that law enforcement at all levels, federal, state, and local finds it “a real challenge.”
Reports say that the FBI had “early success” in breaking into the phone of the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, using tools provided by Cellebrite. This is an Israeli company that oddly advertises its wares as “accelerating justice.”
Wray did not reveal which platforms host the accounts belonging to Crooks that the FBI says it has trouble accessing but noted that “legal process returns” are awaited to accomplish that goal.
And in the meanwhile, he told the Committee, US law enforcement still doesn’t know why Crooks did what he did, implying that investigators are hampered by their inability to break encryption on apps, even though they have access to the shooter’s phone and laptop.
But, the “motive or ideology” that drove Crooks to attempt to assassinate Trump remains unclear, according to Wray. And he is strongly suggesting – always referencing encryption as the culprit – that this may remain so for good.
“Some places we’ve been able to look, some places we will be able to look, some places we may never be able to see, no matter how good our legal process is,” the FBI director told the committee.
