Transcripts For CSPAN Hearing On Threats And Encryption Issues 20240622

At keeping our country safe. It is due in no small part to f. B. I. Vigilance in concert with the Intelligence Community partners that our nation has enjoyed a peaceful and safe Independence Day celebration this past weekend. As you are well aware, extremists remain intent on inflicting harm on u. S. Interests at home and abroad. Over the past year, we witnessed the islamist state, also referred to as isil, agenda attempt to inspire a wide range of individuals to conduct attacks against innocent civilians. The number of u. S. Based individuals seeking to conduct attacks in the homeland or overseas has already exceeded the combined number of individuals attempting activities in 2013 and 2014. Unfortunately, the threats faced by our nation are not limited to terrorist actors. Foreign governments remain intent on stealing National Security secrets. The f. B. I. Is charged with confronting all of these threads threats as well and is continually challenged in addition to these fairly unique jurisdictional issues the f. B. I. Conducts routine investigations of drug trafficking, robbery, murder, and the list goes on and on. These criminals are turning to encrypted communications as a means of evading detection. These two issues that might appear unrelated are in fact closely linked. Communications between a terrorist organizations operational commander and field soldiers require enabling technology. In both cases, the Technology Used by terrorists is increasingly secure, encrypted communications. Both of these adversaries are taking advantage of the Rapid Advances in security communications. They are employing advanced commercially available encryption. As i understand the issue, even when lawenforcement as the Legal Authority to act as theintercept communications pursuant to a court order, you , may lack the technical ability to do so. This is what you have referred to as going dark. You have described it as one of the Biggest Challenges facing your agency and Law Enforcement. This challenge falls at the intersection of technology, law, freedom, and security. It results from the adoption of universal encryption. These applications are designed so that only the user has the key to decode content. In these cases, when the f. B. I. Or any other Agency Requests access to a users communication via a lawful warrant, it does is inaccessible. It does not matter if the suspect is a drug trafficker, lawenforcement is blind. As a result, we are less safe. I, like all americans, like desire privacy. As americans, we are guaranteed security in our persons and effects. I am also concerned, as are my fellow members, about the terrorists counterintelligence and other criminal threats to those very same things. I strongly believe we must identify a solution that first protects american privacy, but also allows for lawful searches under valid court orders. Director, you have said the now readily available is equivalent to a closet that cannot be opened, or a safe that cannot be cracked. You have an opportunity today to speak to the committee and the American People, and convince us that in order to keep the American People safe you need to be able to open the closet. There are no easy answers, and we are embarking on a robust debate. I think it was initiated by you. I think that is a good thing. Director, you wrote that part of your job is to make sure the debate is informed by a reasonable understanding of the cost. I look forward to your testimony. I appreciate you being here. Before i turn to the vicechairman for her remarks i would like to ask unanimous consent to enter several documents into the record. The first is a Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Technical report entitled keys under doormat. The second letter from the American Civil Liberties union on the topic of this hearing. The third is a letter from the Business Software alliance to this committee on the topic of todays hearing. The fourth is a transcript of the directors remarks to the brookings institute. Without objection, those four documents will be entered. I now turn to the vicechairman for any remarks she might make. Vicechairman thank you, mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. There was a crowded hearing this morning in judiciary. I think the number of people here today is evidence that this is a subject of great interest. I thank you for holding this open hearing. Director comey, welcome back to the committee. Let me repeat what i said this morning in judiciary. I want to thank you and the men and women of the f. B. I. For unparalleled service to protect this country and prevent attacks. We are very grateful. I hope you will say that to your people. Thank you. Last month, there were arrests almost every day as the bureau worked to thwart attacks around the fourth of july holiday. Counterterrorism has been at the top of the f. B. I. Priority list since 9 11. Never has included so many operations and threats to our country. The assistant attorney general for National Security said last week in london that the United States government was running hundreds of counterterrorism investigations involving every state. In addition to the growth of terrorist incidents the nature of the threat has changed significantly. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of americans at home are in contact with isil members and affiliates, ranging from those taking direction to those inspired by isil messages on social media platforms. As you know, i have been particularly concerned about terrorists use of the internet to instruct, recruit, and inspire terrorism inside the United States. You very graphically pointed that out. I hope you will again this afternoon. I believe that United States companies, including many founded and headquartered in my home state have an obligation to , do everything they can to ensure that their products and services are not allowed to be used to foment the evil of isil. Last week, i read a lengthy feature in the new york times. The title was isis and the lonely american, which described in detail how isil members use twitter and other services to recruit a young woman over months to support a militant brand of islam and try to get her to marry an isil fighter and travel to syria. As director comey notes in his Opening Statement, the foreign terrorist now has direct access to the United States like never before. Foreign terrorist groups, as well as adversarial nationstates today have greater awareness of how the United States Intelligence Community conducts its business to collect intelligence needed to protect the people of this country, and to inform National Security decisions. This committee has heard from the f. B. I. , the National Security agency, the National Counterterrorism center about how terrorist groups in particular have moved to form s of communications that are harder or impossible for the Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement to access. The increased use of endtoend strong encryption by both new and established Communications Companies has exacerbated this trend. I understand the need to protect records. Encryption is one way of doing so. Especially in this area of cyber penetrations of our government and private Sector Companies encryption is an important safeguard. That doesnt mean that companies should configure their services in a way that denies them the ability to respond to a court warrant, or a similar Legal Process from the government. This is not a theoretical issue. The f. B. I. Has briefed this committee on cases where it knows of communications involving ongoing terrorist s by isil inside the United States, but it has no way to obtain those indications even with a court order based on probable cause. It seems to me that if companies will not voluntarily comply with lawful court orders for information, then they should be required to be able to do so through legislation in a way that protects security of consumer data against unauthorized access. As director comey has said, we are not looking for a backdoor into American Companies. Were looking to be able to use the front door. I welcome todays hearing and look forward to the directors testimony on the ongoing threat of terrorism against the United States, and the need to acquire lawfully, and quickly, information necessary to stop those threats from becoming real attacks. Thank you very much. Senator burr thank you, vice chairman. Members will be recognized for five minutes based upon the order of attendance today. I would like to remind all members that we are in an open session which is unusual. Therefore, i would ask you to be particularly careful in the questions you ask. I trust, director, that if you have an answer that cannot be given an open session, you will just tell the vicechairman and i that we will carry this over into a closed session at an appropriate time. We will accommodate you on that. With that, let me turn it over to you for any of your comments. Director comey thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for this opportunity. I really do like the use of the word conversation. I think this is a conversation we have to have as a country and this is a great opportunity to begin having it. I sometimes hear people talk about the crypto wars. We are fighting the crypto wars today. I dont like that metaphor. I am not fighting anything. I am not here to win anything. I am here to explain the ways in which the change in technology affects the tools the American People, through this body, have given the f. B. I. I think we all care about the same things. We care deeply about the security of our information, of our health care, of our finances, of all the great things that travel over the internet. We all care about Public Safety. We all care about the ability to keep folks safe in this country. I dont see it as a war, but an opportunity to talk, and what we should do about it. I believe we stand at a n inflection point. I felt, not long after id become director, that technology has moved to a place where encryption, which was always available, has become the default. That change has been accompanied by an explosion in apps that offer endtoend encrypted communication. Those things have put us at an inflection point. This committee knows from close d sessions what the American People may no less well, that the terrorism threat today is very different. It has changed in my two years as director. It is not the al qaeda of old. That was interested in the multipronged national landmarkbased careful, long planned attacked. We still face that challenge. The al qaeda of old is very different from what we see today. The al qaeda of old wanted to proselytize and did so by posting magazines on websites. If someone wanted to consume propaganda, they found the website and read the propaganda. If they wanted to talk to a terrorist, they sent an email to the magazine. Here is what has changed. Isil thinks about their terror in a different way. Theyre not focused on the national landmark. Multipronged, longtail event. They want people to be killed in their name. Theyre coming to us with that message with their propaganda and their entreaties to action through twitter and other parts of social media. That is a very different thing than al qaeda ever did. They come into our country through thousands of followers of isil tweeters who are based in syria. They have a physical safe haven. They broadcast a message which is two pronged. Come to the islamic state. Join us here in our version of paradise, which is a nightmare. Second, if you cant come, kill somebody where you are and videotape it. Please try to kill Law Enforcement and military. Here is a list of names. This message is pushed, and pushed, and pushed. Social Media Companies are worth billions of dollars because pushing to someones pocket works. Isil has invested in this for the last year. They have about 21,000 english language followers right now. They are pushing this message. It is as if a devil is sitting on someones shoulder all day saying kill kill, kill. They are in the device. Theyre reaching, and calling and it is having an effect on troubled souls in the United States. I have hundreds of these investigations in every state. We have disrupted just in last few weeks very serious efforts to kill people in the United States. The challenge is isil will find the live ones on twitter and we can see them say here is my encrypted mobile messaging app. Contact me there. So our task to find needles and in a nationwide haystack becomes complicated by the fact that the needle goes invisible. We cannot break strong encryption. People watch t. V. And think the bureau can do a lot of things. We cannot break strong encryption. Even if i get a court order under the Fourth Amendment to intercept that communication, i will get will be good g obbledygoop. The needle remains dark to me. Isil does something al qaeda would never imagine, they task people. Kill someone, and we will see if youre really a believer. These people react in ways that are very difficult to predict. What you saw in boston was with experts call flash to bang being very close. You had a guy in touch with these recruiters. He woke up one morning and decided he would go kill somebody. Thank goodness we were able to confront him. He confronted our people with a knife. They had to use their weapons. That is an example of the unpredictability of this. If you combine the blindness with his broad reach and we face , a challenge if not seen before. This is not your grandfathers al qaeda. This is a very new threat that we face. Some people say you have all kinds of other information. We live in the golden age of surveillance. I think of it differently. I think we live in the golden age of communication. Osama bin laden would never have dreamed that he could speak simultaneously to hundreds of americans, find them, and the n task them in ways that Law Enforcement could not see. The golden age of communication is posing enormous challenges for us. Im not here to scare folks for us. Im here to tell people there is a problem. I do not know the answer. A whole lot of good people that have said it is too hard. It will all fall down and we will have a disaster. Maybe that is so. But my reaction is, im not sure we really tried. I think Silicon Valley is full of great people that were told their dreams were too hard. Thank goodness they did not listen. I think we have the talent to think about this in a good way. My hope is that folks will realize that this really matters. The f. B. I. Is not the source of innovation. We are just telling people we have to talk about this. I see the present, and the future, which in many ways is more troubling because the logic is inexorable. The f. B. I. Is not an Occupying Force imposed on the American People from abroad. We belong to the American People. We only have the tools have they have given us through you. Im here to tell the American People that the tools you have given us are not working the way you expect them to work. I need help figuring out what to do about that. Companies are run by good people, they see the challenge. They want to help. We have to figure out a way to solve this. Maybe it is too hard. But i think this country has never been made up of people who say it cant be done. We really ought to talk about it more. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss that with the committee. Senator burr i think it is safe to restate that we are at the start of the debate, even though we have had the conversations for some time privately. We have watched encryption grow more dominant. Really, as you said, it is become the default. It is almost automatic now. It places a huge challenge on your ability to fulfill your mandate. And our challenge is to work with you as an extension of the American People. To provide you what tools america is comfortable with. I think as we go to this debate , we will figure out where that sweet spot is. I will turn to the vicechairman for her questions. I would share with members of the order. Vicechairman . Senator feinstein thank you very much, mr. Chairman. I think you spoke very eloquently. Can you quantify this . Can you tell us how often the f. B. I. Acting pursuant to a warrant or other lawful process encounters encrypted information you cannot access . Director comey thank you, senator feinstein. The answer is i really cant at this point for a couple of reasons. We are the beginning of this. We will work to collect that data. The other thing is it is a bit like proving a negative. When my folks see something is encrypted, they move on and try to find another way to assess the potential bad guy. We have incidents where wiretaps were issued and then encryption was encountered, but i dont have good enough numbers yet. Senator feinstein i think it would be helpful if the department could gather some numbers to quantify this. The next question is, bsa, known as the software alliance, send a them sent a letter to this committee stating that calls for weakened encryption can create artificial, commercial disadvantages for United States companies and barriers to market access. I would like to have your reaction to that statement. Director comey first, i think i am not an expert. Public safety is my thing. But i think i take issue with the notion of weakening encryption. I also take issue with the whole backdoor notion. With smart people have told me is there are number of companies are pretty out there that you strong encryption that have the ability to access the data and comply with court orders. They are able to do both and a in a robust way. In all different sectors. In the isp world, and finance, and other places. I dont know that it will be a question of weakening encryption. It will be figuring out how to comply with a judges order. I dont that the government is smart enough to be able to impose a onesizefitsall solution. I also think youre right that there are competitive and there are International Implications. I do think there are International Implications to be considered. Every country the cares of the rule of law is grappling with this right now. All of them are trying to figure out how to maximize safety on the internet and maximize Public Safety, and do it under the rule of law. Our friends in the u. K. Are doing it right now. I agree there are implications internationally. Senator feinstein let me ask you to respond to another quote from this same letter requiring , technology that provides Law Enforcement access to technologies also risks undermining the security of all Electronic Communications and digitally stored information. Would you comment on that . As i understand it, what you would be talking about is some kind of front door key . Director comey again my reaction is maybe. If that is the case, i guess we are stuck. I dont think the great innovative people of america have put their minds to this, i believe there are companies that provide significant portions of our Internet Activity that have strongly encrypted data and have the ability to see the data and comply with court orders. Senator feinstein you are saying some do and some dont. Director comey theyve managed to do it without the entire system crashing, or their own business being vulnerable. Here is how i understand it. There is no such thing as secure. There is more secure and less secure. There is vulnerability in every system. Question is, what can we do to maximize Public Safety that results in an acceptable level of security . The answer is i dont know but i think a lot of smart people should be trying to figure that out. I very much share the comment with respect to the respect we have for the men and women of the f. B. I. You and i have policy differences, but we are not going to respect the men and women who work for you any less because of those differences. Every senator that serves on this committee understand it is a dangerous world. The challenge is to make sure that we pursue approaches that promote security while not diminishing our liberty. Too often, we have not been able to achieve either. As we start this debate, i want to emphasize how exactly we got here. Executive Branch Agencies are now dealing with a problem that they largely created. Senior officials made the choice to secretly twist the law to support an illconceived secret program that vacuumed up millions of email records. A number of us spent years warning what the consequences would be. But obviously, Public Confidence was dramatically diminished. That led to a serious public backlash. In response to it as senator feinstein read, companies and accelerated their efforts to provide customers with stronger protections. This creates real challenges for you. But i will tell you as of this morning statements are being , made that do not inspire a lot of confidence. You talk about the need to strike the right balance there has not been a lot of balance in the past. As of what i heard this morning, there is still not too much balance. The Deputy Attorney general seemed to suggest this morning that company should retain a stockpile of Encryption Keys for the government to access, making this a mandatory requirement would present huge problems sent since any such stockpile would be vulnerable to compromise or abuse. In my judgment a mandate like that would be a huge gift to foreign hackers and criminals. What i want to do with my time is put this into context on a matter we all care about, which is cybersecurity. I have had companies in oregon hacked for economic espionage. My constituents are not alone. On the topic of encryption, has the executive branch done any analysis of the impact that a requirement for u. S. Companies to build weaker encryptions, or stockpile these Encryption Keys would have on director comey not that i am aware of fear that forms part of our concerned that we know impose a solution. I would say that i sat next to her, i did not understand her to be saying that. I understood her to say that companies, however they choose to do it, will be able to comply with judges orders, but we dont want to impose one size fits. We Want Companies to work with us. It seems like some companies have figured out how to do it. Senator wyden she did not want the government to have it. Once you are going down that route, i think it is trouble. Having said that you are not aware of any study and that was my sense is it fair to say that strong encryption improve Cyber Security and weaker encryption reduces Cyber Security . Director comey yes. Strong encryption is great. Senator wyden ok. If a stockpile of Encryption Keys was greeted somewhere created somewhere if you had a stock while of these keys created somewhere could you guarantee that these keys would never be stolen by a hostile foreign actor . Director comey the hypothetical stockpile of keys surely not. Again nor it sure you listen to me if i said just the technical solution. I do not know what the solution is. Senator wyden i think you are right. Based on my 14 years of experience on the committee, i do not have a lot of confidence that a stockpile of these Encryption Keys, and as i say, i heard ms. Yates say there ought to be some kind of arrangement of these Encryption Keys somewhere, im not confident that it would not be compromised. That is the flaw in the concept. We will continue to have this debate. Thank you, chairman. Mr. Chairman, i want to thank you for holding a hearing on this topic. If i had one critique it would be that we are missing valuable insight from constitutional liberty experts who also has all concerns around the ideas and potential proposals. One thing i would suggest is that we consider holding a followup public hearing where we can hear from some of those individuals as well, particularly in the technology space. In the meantime, i ask unanimous consent that number of letters and Background Materials that you did not include in your earlier unanimous consent be made part of the hearing record. Without objection. Senator heinrich director comey, this issue is obviously complex, particularly from a technological point of view. I guess i want to start by commending you and as i have nsa director rogers for your willingness to address this publicly. I think one of the challenges is that it will be very hard to address this issue without a specific technological proposal or fix to be able to discuss. Back in the 1990s, we had a first crack at this, which came apart at the seams. Once it became solidified around a particular piece of technology. In the interest of time, im going to submit the rest of my old Opening Statement to the record so that i can get to some questions. I think that will be at the crux of the conversation for a while. We need to know what a potential fix looks like, or in the case of examples, and i will get to that in my question, what those look like in order to know if a fix is really better, or if it creates inherent weaknesses that are exploitable by these very talented, nefarious actors that you brought up in your testimony. As you know, yesterday several respected Cyber Security experts people who are well renowned in the area of cryptography released a report that effectively concluded that you cannot reliably provide the government or anyone else with exceptional access to Software Applications without introducing some critical weaknesses in that encryption. Given your interest in this issue i hope you have had a chance to at least familiar ize yourself with that report one of the things im concerned about here is that it seems like government and the technology interests are sort of talking past one another and need to sit down and get at least the technology pieces of this on the table so we can all agree that we are talking about the same thing. I think it would be a mistake with regard to exceptional access to leave the solution to a congress that i would argue is not always the best judge of all things technical. As you mentioned, there are a lot of people in Silicon Valley that are doing a really good job of trying to manage these things. Can you give some examples of programs that currently use some form of and to and end to end encryption, but also able to respond to love was that warns that you need to put out there . Director comey thank you senator. I agree very much, which is why im so excited about this opportunity. I think this hearing will drive the conversation. We need to do it together. They are the source of innovation and expertise, we need their help in solving this. I read the executive summary and went through the paper pretty quickly. I never heard the term exceptional access. My reaction was that i do not want exceptional access, i want ordinary access. There are providers where because of their business model, encrypt as i understand, strongly Encrypt Communications in motion, but they are visible to them on the servers that they control. As part of a business out model if i want to send you, i want to be able to still see the content. In iteris case or espionage case in a terracedorist case or espionage case, we are able to get the content. I wonder whether or not that is an example that we should use in our conversations with the companies. Every company will be different which is why i dont think every size fits all. Some companies are three guys in a garage. Our ability to work with them may be very different than working with bigger companies. I do not think we want to be seen as imposing this fix on you. I do not want to demonize the companies either. They love our country and care about Public Safety. I know that from private conversations. How do we maximize these two things . May be it is impossible. Im not ready to give up yet. Senator heidrick we are over time, so i will wait for the second round. Having just gotten a letter from opm recently, some might think that the government is not the right people to hold the keys. We need to find a more elegant approach. Senator cotton thank you director for being here to address this very important problem. To mix i understand the issue here, what we are talking about is not some sort of extraordinary surveillance, not something that is unknown to the user of a device, but Encryption Technology that would force a lawful court order that has been taken from an independent federal or state judge by Law Enforcement authorities for access to data then you go through a company, the company says, sorry, we cannot provide you this information because we have created a system that has prevented us from accessing it. Director comey that is correct or in the case of a device that is locked and they cannot open it because they have because they cannot unlock them. Senator cotton i know you testified in front of the Judiciary Committee this morning. I presume this is also relevant to child molesters, kidnappers is that correct . Director comey yes. This is an issue across Law Enforcement, especially on devices that cannot be open. They tell me that is a feature of all the cases you mention as well violence, car accident. The information there can tell you who the bad guy is, and also that someone is not guilty. Senator gcotton i spent some time at the Little Rock Field Office of the fbi. I want to commend the officers you have therefore their important service. They specifically brought up the going dark issue. Furthermore, i was able to see in their lab and effort they made to get access to a locked device. They got access, and allow them to recover a young girl who had gone missing. They said that was rare and there were fortunate they were able to do it. I suspect that is just an example of what i suspect is the case is this an ongoing problem for both federal and local lawenforcement . Director comey yes. Senator cotton do the companies with whom you deal appreciate the fact that the technology you are creating and marketing is being used by terrorists . Director comey they do, and it bothers them. I think that is why we are starting to have more productive conversations. They are good people. Senator cotton we are not only society to encounter this problem. One argument you hear from American Companies is that they need to compete in the International Market because most people do not live in the United States. Have you taken a look at how countries like the United Kingdom or france have adjust this issue . Director comey yes. They are both grappling with it. Both a little ahead of us. They have both passed legislation that, as i understand it, will require providers to give access, with appropriate authority in the course of investigations. They are grappling with it just as we are. Everybody who cares about the rule of law and Public Safety have to grapple with the same thing. Senator cotton about 20 years ago, this Congress Passed something saying that in the old days, Telephone Companies had to provide the ability to let Law Enforcement with a lawful court order put in a wiretap. Could you look to that or what other countries have done to address the going dark problem for a model for this congress to act . Director comey it is possible. Is that a model that can be adopted to deal with this challenge . We are working on that. By us, not just in the government but the private sector has to be part of that conversation. Senator cotton either legislative proposals that they are ready for commerce to take under advisement . Director comey not yet. Senator cotton is that because you are still working with companies . Director comey yes. Just as we all do, the president sees the problem. It is a really hard problem. He has commissioned a whole lot of work on different streams. One of them is to figure out what legislation, if we go that route, would make sense and also get a input from the private sector. Senator cotton thank you very much for keeping us safe on days like the fourth of july and every day. I heard you and the men and women you work with to get us the information as soon as possible. We understand wanting to protect you, but also ensure that Law Enforcement has the tools they need, not just to stop terrorism, but to stop the most heinous crimes imaginable in our society. Senator coates director, you are having a very worthwhile discussion, and i appreciate you being here, and also your openmindedness, in terms of finding humility in a sense to say, we do not know all the answers. A lot of cooperative and smart people are out there who can help us find the answers, and hopefully help us find the balance between privacy and protecting peoples lives. I do not be your job andenvy your job. Every day pick up the newspaper or see on the television that there is a child abducted, or criminal acts, or terrorist threats from abroad. The American Public is demanding that your agency do Everything Possible to prevent that from happening, to recover that child, to address the blatant use of communication devices and so forth, and so on that result in very bad criminal acts. At the same token, you get hit from the other side saying dont you dare do anything that would give you that could potentially be used to violate someones privacy. That is a very narrow path to walk down and achieve both of those goals. I think your statement, relative to the fact that we need to turn to those very people that are providing the encryption in order to protect peoples privacy are part a very essential part to the solution. My question is while we can make patriotic requests to all these Technical Companies to help us through this and there are page are americans that say, yes, lets find that sweet spot we also know there are countries around the world who have no intent of helping us whatsoever. Within those countries, or those lawless areas, like you mentioned, in terms of isil occupying physical territory the last thing they will do is cooperate with us to find a solution to this particular problem. It would be very easy well that turned us to the difficulty of no matter how much we do, we are Global Communications system, and it is easy to turn somewhere else. We see offshore gambling because we have passed laws to not do gambling on the internet in the United States. Recently find an island in the caribbean and set up, and there goes. Im wondering how you can continue to have the agency perform its role without some type of authority to allow you to of course within the legal system address the problem. Obviously, it will take time to develop any kind of solution. Do you what do you have to do to relative manpower cost to fill the gap . Director comey thank you senator. I should have said is earlier to thank the entire committee, but you invited me, thank you for the nice things you said about the folks at the fbi. I sent them all and know before july 4 saying thank you, the American People i know are thankful. I know you are bone tired i know my folks are bone tired but they stopped the stuff headed to us on july 4 year event, it was july 7 and eighth, and thereon to the next thing. I will pass it on to them. We love walking the fine line between safety and Civil Liberties. We do agree that there is an International Component to this, as you said, senator. The folks especially in western europe and here in north america who care about the things that we care about, we have to figure out an approach that makes sense. America is the big dog. What we do will set the tone and pattern for the rest of the world. We cannot fix the whole world but for the world who thinks about things as we do, we can drive it. That does not mean that it is an easy thing. We try to fill the gap by if i cannot see the communications of a terrorist, then i have to find out if i can get an informant, can i fall him for 24 7 for weeks and weeks and you something terms turns up . We will keep doing it. But, the tools that we thought we had our being diminished, i see that continuing. Senator coats we look forward to working with you to try to achieve that goal. Senatorh hirono in how many cases have you sought a war for a device or one that has been completely forded by encryption . Director comey as i said earlier, i do not know the answer to that. We will try to see of their data that we can collect on that. Im not confident that it will be very reliable for you. What are best years to is if they see someone is on an app that is encrypted, they will not bother seeking a wiretap for that. I do not think we can count that as a wiretap forded. If we see encryption we try and use another way. Im not optimistic that we will get you a great data set. Theres is no doubt that this is a real feature of our lives. The logic is that all of our papers all of our communications will at some point have strong encryption. I hope everyone agrees that will have strong consequences for Law Enforcement. Senator hirono i think that is why we have to be very careful in what we have to do. As you say, no system is secure, so we need to weigh what the risks are, etc. At the same time, we have this very a gust gro group who says that it could result in unintended consequences, including that our companies will lose an advantage because if we expand cut calia then our companies would have to provide a backdoor solution and Foreign Companies dont, then they are ine at a competitive disadvantage. There are issues that we have to weigh. Did i understand you to say that expanding calia is just one of the things on the table . I understood the said that it should be expanded to include encryption apps . Director comey i do not know what i said that, but if i said that, im smarter today than i was then. I think that is something that folks are discussing, by do not know what the answer is. That is why we have come to the hearing without proposal. We are trying to say that we do not know what is best. Senator hirono as we wrestle with the subject, and meanwhile companies are providing more and more encryption apps at what point do think we will be ready to take some sort of legislative action that will enable you to get access to information, and yet, still provide our companies with a kind of environment that they would like us to provide . Director comey i do not know. Senator hirono what is the timeframe . Director comey i dont know. I think this is one of the most coveted problems i have seen in government for the reasons that i have alluded to, including to what you alluded to about competitive harm. We have to figure out, how can we maximize safety on the internet and Public Safety in a way that makes sense for america. It probably makes sense, we have to figure out what kind of people we want to be first. I think we have to do that in late with International Partners that we do not create a situation where america is the only mover, and that causes harm to our companies. Senator hirono i think that is a very important aspect of what we do Going Forward on the going dark problem. It would be very unfair to our companies, as you say, if we were the only country that requires a backdoor way to this information. Im glad that that is on the table. The president review group as some other people have artie mentioned, they have said very strongly that we should not require a backdoor way. In these discussions, is the Technical Technology companies, are they going to be at the table as we discussed Going Forward what might be appropriate legislative action . Director comey they have to be. I think we all think that no one size fits all. You have to find what works for different companies. As i said before, he that is the source of innovation and creativity that we have to harness. Senator hirono thank you senator. Senator mikulski director, it is very nice to see you again. Mr. Chairman, thank you for having this hearing. I would like to pick up on senator heinrichs recommendation for an additional hearing from the technical and Civil Liberties for. In our briefing, ive read letters from the aclu, who we so value, and the software alliance. I saw a lot of criticism for what we are pursuing here for some type of opportunity to not go dark. I did not see any solutions. I thought a lot of i saw a lot of criticisms, critiques, but not solutions. I believe, again as senator heinrichs said and others, we have tremendous technical knowhow. I believe that people in Silicon Valley are very patriarch people, and they do not want drug dealers international traffickers and child were not your first to get away with various things. If we could perhaps get experts from them and Civil Liberties groups, that would be great. In this years of probation funding, we worked very hard to support you, both when i was chair of the subcommittee as now senator shelby. We have now put in a . 4 billion to fund you for the coming year and also put in 483 million for Cyber Security. My question to you is do you feel that those resources, and the type of work force the you have is able to be flexible enough to meet the ongoing threat . Im not being critical of what you have, but if you talk about the recruitment tools, they are pretty talented at using twitter and other forms of social media. That is a whole different generation. It is a whole different generation than the original Cyber Warriors that were hired under your predecessor. Do you think you have enough resources to be able to recruit the people needed to deal with this as well as the administrative flexibility to bring administrative flexibility to bring in teams . This is not going to be your traditional agent. We could have the best law in the world, but unless you have the best workforce and the flexibility and the resources to hire it, we are just providing hollow opportunities. Dir. Comey i think the answer is yes and no. Yes, i believe that the senate and this congress is giving us the resources i need for next year. The money i can responsibly spend. But i face a threat that continues to grow so i will be back to ask for additional help. But you have given us what we can reasonably spend, reasonably invest in. Yes, i think i can attract the talent. I cannot compete on dough. The Value Proposition is totally different. If you are interested in dough you dont come to the fbi. You did not come here to get rich. But so many young people want to make a difference in the life of this country that they dont care about the dough. They want to be a part of addressing these threats. That is pretty exciting. I am optimistic. Once i get them in and they are here five or six years and they have a family and there are no costofliving adjustments, i may start to lose their enthusiasm a little bit. I have lots of smart, young folks senator mikulski what about the flexibility . You are now operating in the social media. Your predecessor faced al qaeda. You face a variety of other challenges. As you so clearly said. Do you have the administrative flexibility to bring on people as you need them that might not be the traditional trade route for recruitment of fbi personnel . Dir. Comey i think so. There is a couple of things around that that i am thinking about. But in the main, the answer is yes. One of the things we have to consider is you look at a should we look at a different career proposition for people . Once people come to the fbi, they never leave. They get addicted to it. But then they go and do something in the private sector and then come back. That is something we have not done before. But that is a model we need to look at. But in the main, yes, you have given me the flexability. Senator mikulski we have three socalled coincidences today. The fact that technology failed at united airlines, the new york stock exchange, as well as the wall street journal. I dont believe in coincidence. I think coincidence is an event we dont have an explanation for. Is the fbi investigating these as breaches . Have you not been called in or are you are not able to say . I am very troubled. Dir. Comey obviously, that caught my attention. We are not big believers in coincidence either. We want to dig into that. We have been in contact with all three companies to understand what is going on and we do not see any indication of a cyber breach or cyber attack. The wall street journal piece is connected to people flooding their website in connection to the new york stock exchange. To find out what was going on. But it looks like, again, and by ms. This in my business, you dont love coincidences, but it does appear that there is not a cyber intrusion involved. Senator collins director, you talked about the impact on terrorism cases and your counterterrorism efforts and you said it is very difficult to quantify what the impact is. But it is my understanding that this morning, in testimony before the Judiciary Committee that the District Attorney for manhattan said that in the past six months alone, there had been 74 cases where Law Enforcement had been stymied because they were unable to get information from policeseized cell phones. Is that accurate . Dir. Comey i saw that in the written testimony. Knowing him, i believe it to be accurate. Senator collins as i look at this problem, which obviously has ramifications that some of my colleagues have pointed out for criminal cases as well as for counterterrorism investigations, would an option be to require the companies themselves to be able to access the information to comply with a lawful court order, not the government having the keys or backdoor in, but the company itself . Might that be a solution to this problem . Dir. Comey yes. It is possible to imagine a world where the companies figure out how to comply in a way that maximizes security of their information and complies with the judges order. And that every company does it in a slightly different way. Yes, that is a possible outcome. Senator collins most companies i suspect that are involved in developing this end to end encryption did so with the best of their intentions. But do you believe there are some companies that have intentionally developed this kind of system in order to thwart their ability to respond to a lawful court order . Dir. Comey i dont know with respect to the intent question. I know there are companies, once they made the decision advertised it as a solution that would be immune to a search warrant. Apple did that when they rolled out the new phone. But i dont know if the intent of the original change was to a result. Senator collins it does to me. If a companys advertising that information would be safe from a search warrant, that is traveling troubling to me. Because that, to me, implies an intent to keep information away from Law Enforcement despite the issuance of a lawful court order. I think most people involved in the encryption process and developmentbased products would not want to thwart Law Enforcement, whether it is for a criminal case or terrorism. But that kind of advertising does trouble me. And i wont ask you to respond to that. I do want to switch to access to a different kind of information. That suggests how much we need a computer Cyber Security law. I just met with the ceo of a large bank. He relayed to me an incident where the fbi knew that his bank had been targeted for cyber attack. Here is what he told me had to happen. He said that the fbi, under current law, could not immediately go to this bank and convey the information. First, they had to go to the bank regulators, the occ regional office. Then the information had to go from there to the occ in washington. From there, it had to go to the department of Homeland Security. Then the department of Homeland Security approved the fbi contacting the bank to warn them of this eminent attack. Well obviously and he said this all occurred over a weekend so it was difficult to reach people. There were cell phones involved, etc. That is a terrible system. We need to be able to empower the fbi in real time to be able to notify a Financial Services organization, the electric grid, the air Traffic Control System Critical infrastructure of an impending attack. Would you agree with that . Dir. Comey very much v very much. What youve described surprises me because i think the way we operate, we call them. I am going to go back maybe you can privately give me the information. It is not the way i understand it works or it is supposed to work. Senator collins this incident really troubles me because by the time the information got to the proper people at the bank, it is nothing short of a miracle that the cyber attack hadnt already occurred. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator warner thank you, mr. Chairman. Let me add my comments to the good work you do and the people of the fbi do. Building on senator collinss comments, i think again, even if this was a oneoff and there is not a single point of contact speaks volumes of the need to at least take forward legislation in a bipartisan way. I dont think that it would solve all the problems, but it would be a significant step forward. I have had some conversations with companies in the i. T. Space, in the encryption space who once they have created this entity, i think they are starting to understand the potential problems being created. Can you speak to any of that in terms of a recognition, under the guise of privacy or Better Business protections, a growing recognition within particularly the i. T. Community that this is very much a double edged sword and may have created a monster that is not controllable . Dir. Comey i met what i said. Meant what i said. I think they are good people. It is not their job to worry about Public Safety so i do not think that it is something that is front and center for them. Particularly this isil threat, how real it is and everywhere, has focused of them. So we are having reductive productive conversations. They do want people to die. They dont want kids to be kidnapped. These are regular folks. They are good people who want to have successful businesses and they want to protect their country. Again, i am not a naysayer. People write papers who say it is too hard. I am not buying that. I dont think that the people of Silicon Valley i do think that the people of Silicon Valley are saying lets see what we can do to protect what we have built and poet and protect our country. Senator warner a lot of i. T. One 100 plus military families were publicized, i think it will cup a lot of i. T. Companies in virginia woke up to how strong this threat is. Let me move to a question of hoping to ask about the events today. I want to raise another issue. I think there has been a great deal of confusion around the opm breach. We are literally months into this now and continue to get a series of different answers in terms of numbers. I have been buried disappointed by opms reaction. And post breach, in terms of assuring those federal employees, current and past, what action the countrys got going to take to protect them. Some contractors have been illequipped. But if you can perhaps give a little more clarity about the overall scope of that within the context of this public hearing there are a lot of people listening for those kinds of answers. Dir. Comey it is something that i need to approach carefully. I know the administration, opm in particular, is working and is close to offering a more public and more detailed accounting of what we think was lost. But it is an enormous breach and a huge amount of data that is personal and sensitive to federal employees, former federal employees, people who have applied for federal employment that was available to the adversary. We have to assume that it was looked at or expelled. We are talking about millions and millions of people affected by this. The challenge of it is, im sure the adversary has my fs 86. It lists everywhere i have lived since i was 18, every foreign travel i have ever taken come taken, all of my family, their addresses. It is not just my identity that is affected. I have siblings. I have five kids. All of that information is in there. The numbers quickly grow far beyond the number of federal employees, which is millions. So it is a very, very big number. It is a huge deal. Senator warner we are now more than a year from the first breach and the lack of a single answer or some sense of an answer overall from the administration is very troubling. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator mccain is it true you have stated on several occasions that isis poses over time a direct threat to the United States of america . Dir. Comey yes. Senator mccain and that is the case today. Dir. Comey yes, every day they are trying to motivate people to kill people on their behalf. Senator mccain and every day, they take advantage of this use of the internet, which you have described, by going to unbreakable efforts of communicating, the more people are recruited and motivated here in the United States and other countries to attack the United States of america. Is that true . Dir. Comey yes, sir. Senator mccain so this is not a static situation. This is a growing problem as isis makes various effective use of the internet. Is that correct . Dir. Comey that is correct, sir. Senator mccain with all due respect to your opening comments, this is more than a conversation that is needed. It is action that is needed. Isnt it true that, over time, the ability of us to respond is diminished as the threat grows and we maintain the status quo . Dir. Comey i think thats fair. Senator mccain so we are now and i have heard my colleagues with all due respect, talking about attacks on privacy and our Constitutional Rights, etc. But it seems to me that our first obligation is the protection of our citizenry against attack, which you agree is growing. Is that a fact . Dir. Comey i agree that is our first responsibility. Senator mccain so the status quo is not acceptable if we support the assertion that our duty is to protect the lives and property of our fellow citizenry as our first priority. Do you agree with that . Dir. Comey i agree that this is something we have to figure out what to do about. Senator mccain now we have a situation where the major corporations are not cooperating and saying that, if we give the government access to their internet, that somehow it will compromise their ability to do business. Is that correct also . Dir. Comey it is a fair summary of what some have said. Senator mccain we are discussing a situation where in the u. S. Government, i. E. Law enforcement and the Intelligence Community, lack the capability to do that which they had the authority to do. Is that correct . Dir. Comey certainly with interception of devices with of communications and devices with encryption and locked devices, yes. Senator mccain we are in an interesting situation where your obligation is to defend the country and, at the same time, you are unable to do so because these telecommunications, these organizations are saying that you cant and are devising methodology which prevents you from doing so if it is a single key use only by the user. Is that correct . Dir. Comey i would not agree that i am unable to discharge my duty to protect the country. We are doing it everything that they using multiple tools. Senator mccain are you able to have access to those systems which only have one key . Dir. Comey no, we cannot break strong encryption. Senator mccain that is a mechanism which is installed by the manufacturer who then you that there is only one key that is available to them to you. Dir. Comey correct. Senator mccain suppose that we had legislation which required two keys, one for the user and one, given a court order requiring a court order, that you would be able to with substantial reason, motivation to do so, would want to go into that particular site. What is the problem with that . Dir. Comey a lot of smart people, smarter than i come us i, certainly say that would have a disastrous impact on broader security across the internet, which is also part of my responsibility. Senator mccain do you believe that . Dir. Comey i am skeptical that we cannot find a solution that overcomes that harm. But a lot of serious people say, you dont realize, a russian to something and it will be a disaster for your country because it to a kill your country and it will kill innovation. Senator mccain we just established the fact that isis is trying to kill americans. Arent they . Director comey they are. Senator mccain i say with respect to my colleagues in the constitutional obligations and rights that were facing a determined enemy who is, as we speak, according to you and the director of Homeland Security, seeking to attack america, destroy america, and kill americans. It seems to me that the object should be to find a way not only to protect americans rights but to protect american lives. I hope you will devote some of your efforts, and i hope the congress will, understand the nature of this threat and to have, to say that we cant protect Constitutional Rights and at the same time protect america is something that i simply wont accept. I thank you, director comey. Chairman burr senator blunt. Senator blunt thank you for being here, and the work you do. Following up on the comments mccain made, what are we really focused on here the recruitment of someone not already in the Terror Network . The reason im asking this is it seems to me that if you want to use encrypted equipment from some other country, and two of you were committed to do that , you could do that. I can get on the internet outside of the country, use the equipment i took with me which is certainly not something that i purchased tyhere there. Even if we did something about encryption here, i am no expert, but its seems to me that would not stop two people who plan to communicate with each other on devices they got somewhere else. Is there something here i dont understand . The other part of the question is, is our real target to monitor the recruiting efforts or the internal efforts of people talking in the United States among themselves about doing terrorist things . Director comey thank you, senator. The recruitment tends to take place in a way that we can see it. Either on twitter, or direct messaging, which are not encrypted. Then, if it looks productive they move them to the end and to end encrypted communication. Of major concern is one of the what other guys in syria what are the guys in syria telling these guys and what they telling them back . And what are they saying to their guys using encrypted platforms . Senator blunt the international encrypted equipment is still available, is there anything we can do that stops that from being a problem that you cant penetrate . Director comey i think the answer is if the servers are located outside the United States, we would have a heck of a time enforcing a regime giving regime that would require them to give us access. If there is somewhere we can impose our will on it, i just dont know that well enough. I do the one of the challenges think one of the challenges people raise is that even if we fix our problem, yet to address you have to address it internationally. To solve your problem, america has to get its act together. It is the big dog. See you ought to do it first. Then your colleagues in western europe have to get their acts together to make sure there isnt a safe haven there. People might move their infrastructure somewhere else, but you will always have a small part of the problem. I think the main part to be dealt with with north america and europe focusing on it. Senator blunt as you are is europe focusing on it . Director comey yes. U. K. And france are ahead of us. France in particular, and brits, i know the british better have legislation that requires access to communications. The infrastructure is in the United States in which they want to compel access. So trying to figure out how to deal with that is something we are still trying to figure out. Senator blunt the infrastructure is really the target. As opposed to the device somebody might be using, even if the device is encrypted. What infrastructure it goes through may not accept that encrypted message . Director comey that would give you the ability to compel, to impose a requirement that the provider, the owner, comply with american law. The challenge is if the infrastructure is not in the United States who were you compelling to give the judge possible to affect . Senator blunt i think i am joining the group that suggests we have a more technical, not to diminish either your abilities or mine, and we have and probably in a closed session, so we can ask questions without telling everyone things they dont need to know. But i i i think we have a bigger problem than we can deal with on our own. To fight a big fight here that is easily evaded by someone wants to evade it would be of concern to me. In conjunction with others who are perhaps even ahead of us on this, i think the director makes a good point that we need to understand. Chairman burr we were up conversing already about how to put together another hearing, if not a series of hearings, to get us deeper into better understand, along with the director, what our options might be as we proceed forward. This is something of recommend to all the members that they become educated in on a periodic basis. This is not the end of technological advancements. Therefore, it is not the last challenge we will face. From a technology standpoint. Senator lankford . Senator lankford it is just the latest. First, thank you for all your work and please pass on to the folks who works worked some very long hours leading up to the july 4, the work they did. We do appreciate their work very much. You have a terrific team. The challenge we face on this is not only on the technology side, in dealing with terrorism, it is also the benefit that is gained from this. I would tell you the folks at opm would be glad to talk about encryption. If they had kept the data in a more secure area. Whether that be retailers around the country thanks, government agencies, we are benefiting from encryption and the technology that has been invented. What i would like to talk about is that we need to have a balance in the conversation because we absolutely need encrypted technology because we are very exposed in finding that all the ways in our information is exposed. We need that to continue to advance on one side, but a basic on basic Law Enforcement we have to have a different ability. Talk to me about some legal frameworks here. If someone goes on social media and a half and they have child pornography, that is a criminal issue. Talk to me about the legal frameworks. There is a step before this that is the recruiting. That is recruiting based on people that actually believe that we do which is not the problem but will also act out and kill people. Help me understand some of the legal frameworks there. Director comey if someone is on social media talking about the possibility or offering and the any rate any kind of criminal activity which includes terrorism, that is predicate for an investigation and us using our lawful tools to find out what is going on there. And who are these people. Senator lankford im really talking about the step before that. That social media side. What does that trigger . Does that begin investigation . You begin the process of trying to track this down. They are encouraging a criminal act on american soil. But then you have extra communications happening now in the encrypted level. Director comey they are broadcasting out this poison through twitter. They have 21,000 followers in english. They will have twitter following communications, then that may be they may have direct messaging, all of which with lawful access lawful process we can get access to and evaluate. If the person appears to be serious, they will then say move to this mobile messaging app which is encrypted. That is when we lose them. As i said earlier, we have no ability if we intercept that mobile messaging apps, we can intercept the data but it is indecipherable. And we cant break that encryption. Senator lankford the social media platforms, they still see no issue once it is clearly known that this is an illegal activity . Is their response to say you cant do that on our platform . Or are they just open to anything whether it is prostitution, child born terrorism, you can use it. Director comey i misunderstood the question, sorry. They are being quite good about this. It is gotten increasingly good has gotten increasingly good over the last year. Twitter does not want people engaging in criminal activity of any sort on their social media platform. They are being particularly aggressive at shutting down isil related sites. I think its led isoto threaten to kill their ceo which help them understand the threat than in a better way. So they are being quite good about that. Senator lankford you alluded twice now to the u. K. And france that are ahead of us in this. You said they are discussing can you give us greater details to what they are discussing . When you say they are a little bit ahead of us. I think it is a rare moment for europe to be ahead of us of on anything. Help me understand what you mean. Director comey i dont want to swell the brits heads. They have passed legislation that is called dripa that imposes Data Retention requirements on communications providers. It also imposes Access Requirements that the providers must comply with lawful borders. Orders for data moving on the network. They are ahead of us in that they passed a legislative package that addresses impart in part what were talking about here. But they have to figure out how will that work when all the providers are in the United States . How will they enforce the legislation if they want data from someone was located in california . How will they make that a reality . Senator lankford thank you, i yield back. German burr senator highbridge heinrich. The top question is this whole thing has gotten the point where the most years problems are these lone wolf people who are either inspired or directed from out of their country to do something. The most recent example is what happened in tunisia just last week. Without obviously, we are in open session, but i would like to give you the opportunity to talk to the American People how this fits into your priorities and what youre doing about this and matters that are unclassified. Director comey isil is reaching into the United States trying to motivate troubled souls and increasingly kids to either come to the caliphate or kill where you are. In social media, this actually works. It works to sell shoes, it works to motivate souls to do bad things. We are now reaping the results of a yearlong media push. That is why is he so many this is why you see so many arrests from the fbi. This is going on all over the place. We are working very, very hard on it. I want the American People to know about it, but we also need their help. In the most every case and someone saw something. Someone saw something that didnt seem right. We have to get folks just to tell us. If it is just a bad day, there will not be a problem. We have to get folks when they see something that stand up on that makes the hair stand up on the back of the next, to say something, we need to check it out. We have state and local lawenforcement helping us all around the country. We need the good folks of america to say something. And we will check it out. You can tell any Police Officer in the entire United States since 9 11, we have gotten our act together. Senator heinrich thank you for that and appreciate what you do and what your organization does. We all know that you have got to be right every day, 100 of the time. They only have to be right once. So you are doing a good job and keep up the good work. Thank you. Chairman burr thank you senator. Director, we are going to take just a few more questions. And i make this note for members, we have a series of five stack votes starting at 4 30. I want to sort of try and wrap a lot of things you have talked about because people have asked individual pieces of this question on going dark. Is your is your greatest concern finding the balance between what we Ask Phone Companies or Service Providers or manufacturers to do to their products or their systems, and where the breakpoint is before they become a Foreign Company versus a Domestic Company where i would take from what your folks said to you when you get to the point to have chased them out of the country, you have just major problem much worse versus better, can you help us dissected at . Director comey yes. The reason this is the hardest problem i have seen is we have important Public Safety issues that we have talked about that i think everybody agrees are implicated by the universal strong encryption. And then weve got innovation, which is unbelievably important. It is the engine of our amazing country. And weve got security. I care a lot about Cyber Security. I love strong encryption. So how do we take those things we care about innovation and jobs security on the internet, and security for ordinary people from common terrorism how do we maximize them all . As i said, some smart people say, well, if you do anything, it will destroy the internet or it will chase all the businesses overseas. So i do think we have to engage on the technical solution with smart people and creative people, and we need to think about, is there an International Aspect to this . Ought to not the civilized rule of law countries agree upon a framework that makes sense . Sometimes people say to me, if we did this for you, weve got to do it for china. My response is, if china wants you to do for them what i want you to do, which is require me to go to in independent judge show probable cause, get a written order, right, that would be great for the chinese people. I dont think chin china wants you to do what i want to to do you to do. I think we have to be thoughtful about it. Chairman burr we certainly we get that part and we are going to follow that up with some tech Company Questions at a hearing. Before i turned to the vicechairman, i want to give you one opportunity. If there is something you want to share with the American People that you havent already talked about, as it relates to the bureau. I want to give you the opportunity to do that. About your folks at the bureau and what the bureau does and why the American People should care whether you are successful. Director comey as i said earlier, we work for the American People. We are i hope a lot of folks know folks in the bureau. We are ordinary people who actors and to do this with our lives. We have used the tools you gave us. I am here to say to the owners of the fbi, ive got a problem i need help fixing it. But make no mistake about it the folks who work for me, we are going to his day at it every single day, around the clock. If this tool goes away, ok, we will do our absolute rest. But we think it would be irresponsible to not tell the shareholders, the people who on the fbi, the problems we are facing so we can address it. But my folks on tv sometimes, we look great. And movies, sometimes, sometimes not. But we are ordinary people who have chosen not to make a good living, but to make a different can of life. We love this work. We love working for you. And we are simply here to tell you, give you a status report on how it is going with the tools you have given us. Chairman burr vice chair. Thank you, mr. Chairman. We passed out the authorization bill on, i think to 24. In that bill, we put a provision that would require Technology Companies to a form inform the appropriate areas of terrorist activities. This is modeled after an existing law that requires companies to notify authorities about cases of town pornography but it does not require companies to monitor any user subscriber or customer. It is really the beginning of saying look, mr. And mrs. American technology, you have a responsibility. What do you think of that . Director comey it is an interesting idea. I have heard about it. I have not read it or studied it. So i frankly cannot give you an intelligent answer. I do find in practice that they are pretty good about telling us what they seem. Vice chairman feinstein it is pretty simple. We do that for child pornography. Dont you think we should do it for possible terrorist acts . Director comey maybe. But i havent heard i would want to hear out the other side. Vice chairman feinstein oh, dear. Director comey i want to make sure i am not missing something. I am dumb enough when i know something this is something i havent studied enough to give you an intelligent answer. Vice chairman feinstein ok. Thanks, mr. Chairman. One last question. If the United States were to require our company doing business here to ensure government access to encrypted communications, would you expect that foreign governments would create the same requirements for Companies Operating there . Director comey i think they might or might try to. Senator wyden and i will tell you that, in my view, would clearly be the outcome. I think that would make american individuals and businesses more vulnerable to surveillance by foreign governments. I just want to leave you with one last thought. I have been on this committee for 14 years so i kind of get a sense were something is headed. I think, mr. Director, where this is headed is towards proposals for some kind of stockpile of Encryption Keys. I dont think we havent fleshed out where the senator is going to want to go, but i get the sense this is where this is going. There is going to be some kind of stockpile of Encryption Keys for the government to access. I just want you to know that im willing to work with you and ideas here, but i think this proposal is a bigtime loser. It is a loser on security grounds, for the reasons i mentioned. It is a retreat on privacy and i think he will do great damage to our cutting edge Digital Companies that have jobs and pay good wages. I hope we are not going to go there. I just want you to know my scent, having listened to a couple of hours of this and listening to this mornings testimony, where i think this is headed. I think it is the wrong way to proceed. Take your, mr. Chairman. Chairman burr senator heinrich. Senator heinrich please, think all your personnel. Not just for their efforts in recent weeks, but their efforts that go unsung year in and year out. I want to thank you in particular for the amount of humility that you have shown today. I think it is really helpful at wrapping our heads around how we should proceed on this. Because i think i think the most dangerous thing is to jump to a solution that turns out to be the wrong solution. I have some ideas that i will not share in open session that i will share with you and share with my colleagues here about places we should be investing right now. To address some of these concerns. And i will just reiterate, i think would be making a mistake if we immediately jumped forward and, say we pass a law to mount that prohibited strong and to and encryption end to end encryption with expiring keys and effectively what we did under that scenario, or what i would fear, is that a terrorist or a criminal would simply download an app from pakistan or somewhere else that would allow them to get around this scenario and it would put our american data at risk, while protecting theres effectively. So i think we just need to think through all of that to make sure that at the end of the day, we are getting at the people that are causing the problem and we are not building in weakness into the protection of our own countrys data be it the government or just individuals who expect their financial data, all the things that we use online now to remain to remain private. With that, once again, i would ask you to share any final thoughts and thank you for realizing that there are going to be a lot of questions and and realizing that we are not going to have all the answers immediately and we shouldnt jump to answers before we completely understand the problem. Director comey thank you senator. I agree that it has to be approached carefully. I think it is the hardest problem i have seen in government. The stakes are very, very high. I think we care about the same things whether we are from industry or government. We do hard stuff when we talk about it together and figure it out together especially when the whole effort is around shared values. Senator heinrich i will leave you with one last thought. We have heard a lot about the amazing innovations at Silicon Valley, and i would tend to agree that incredible stuff comes out of there all the time. I think as we seek a solution to some of these things, we should not forget the incredible innovations that come out of our national laboratories. And some of those solutions may make even better sense in this scenario. Thank you, once again, director. Chairman burr thanks, senator. I wont speak for the vice chairman but, you know, if anything, i have been a little frustrated. Frustrated that nobody in the administration, no agency has come up and said here is what we think we need. I mean, we have been talking about going dark for some time. And i think you deserve a tremendous amount of credit for your restraint. Dont know that we know the answer yet, therefore we are not playing proposals on the table. We are not up saying, heres a solution we think we might work might work. We will come when we have a solution we know will work. So, i commend you for that. I havent heard anybody talk about thousands of keys until today. I ensure there are some who sit at home at night and are concerned that maybe that is the choice we will make. If it were that easy, i think we would already have a solution proposed to us. And we would be hashing it out with our members. The fact is is that we know that is not going to meet the test of getting legislation through congress and signed into law. And i think we are just as challenged as you are, director about what the solution is. We want to work with you. I think it is safe to say that we are probably going to have some hearings, they may be closed, they may be open. Ceos of Tech Companies privacy groups. We are going to try and reach out to some experts. Met with the belief that we are going to come up with a solution that you havent come up with, but we are going to be knowledgeable left as we go down enough as we go down that road together that both sides are confident of where we are going and we are fairly confident that it is going to be beneficial to the end goal, which is defending the American People. Let me just add one note. When i left prior to the fourth, after doing this now for 15 years, since 2000, i was convinced that we were going to have an incident before i came back this monday. It didnt happen. And im convinced they did not happen because they bureau and the Intelligence Community worked like it is designed to work. And you asked your folks all around the country to go on a different schedule and they did and they were on that temple for weeks. May still be there. And the fact is that we were able to fort a lot of things early thwart a lot of things early and maybe postpone some things that may have happened. Your folks deserve a tremendous amount of credit. We know this is not going away. Away with the fourth of july. Ramadan states pilot stays vibrant for another few weeks. We will pick up on some things, but we also have to recognize the fact that we have got some areas that we are going to be making decisions without the information we have had in the past because of the communication tools that these folks are using. We want to be able to address this as quickly as we can. So that we can return to as robust of information sharing between intelligence and month for sprint so that your folks are confident they can do what they are asked to do, versus just open where putting on a good enough face on saturday that we are scaring the enemy the opponent that dwell. But you deserve a tremendous amount of credit for how come over the last three to four weeks, the bureau has defended the American People. And for that please give our regards to all at the bureau. With that, director, thank you for being here. Sorry that you had to pull a doubleheader today, but you are a strong guy. Hopefully your achilles is still there. This meeting is adjourned. [indistinct chatter] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [indistinct chatter] [indistinct chatter] negotiations over Irans Nuclear program continue in vienna today. The washington examiner, along with several other sources reports that negotiators are close to an agreement that would be followed by a formal announcement as early as tomorrow. Seven countries involved have the opportunity to review the terms of the deal. The current round of talks have taken more than two weeks and surpassed three deadlines in an effort to restrict Irans Nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. On todays fox news sunday, Mitch Mcconnell was asked about the likelihood of congress approving the deal. Enough democrats willing to look at this objectively, look at the facts. Is this a good deal . Is this likely to achieve the outcome we had hoped for . If they can bring themselves to do that and make an objective evaluation of it, i think itll be a very hard sell for the administration. The white house had a meeting monday, a Conference Call with liberal groups saying