Washington, d. C. We will show you some of the interviews we conducted with members of congress, government officials, and technology leaders. On the communicators, we want to introduce you to sujit raman, the associate Deputy Attorney general. What is in your portfolio in that position . Sujit i helped oversee the work we do on cyber issues at the department of justice, so a host of issues related to technology from Security Issues to supplychain issues to cryptocurrencies to encryption and access to data issues, crossborder data issues. What exactly do you do . Do you bring cases against people who have violated u. S. Law . Sujit thats right. At the department of justice, our job is to enforce federal and criminal law. Please bring criminal cases against people, organizations, foreign state actors who violate u. S. Federal law, results in a policy component of what i do which is help the attorney policiesormulate working with the congress, our interagency to advance rule of law issues around the world. Is your position political or career . Sujit i serve in a political office. Im a career employee. I survey little bit of both. Im a career person who serves in a political office. How long have you been at the doj . Sujit i started my career 12 years ago as an assistant attorney for eight years in the district of maryland and three years ago, moved to maine justice where i currently enjoy a leadership role within the department. Andou mentioned encryption, that has been in the news recently with the saudi terrorist in florida and the San Bernardino shooting several years ago. What is the current thinking when it comes to encryption and the doj . Sujit i appreciate the question. I should emphasize at the department of justice, we believe in strong encryption, we believe in making sure it is secure. A major part of the mission is to prosecute cyber criminals who steal data and violate u. S. Federal law, so we believe in encryption, but what we are worried about is what we call borat proof encryption. Proof encryption. It is so strong, essentially only the user can access the content. That is problematic because when we go to a judge, a neutral judge and seek a warrant, which is what the prosecution constitution requires, we run into a situation where we cant execute those lawful orders. Saudi shooter in pensacola, he had two iphones, one of which he put a bullet into, which one would suggest there is information on the phone that he didnt want people have access to. We went to a federal judge, the judge authorized us to seek the contents of that phone. Because of the way the phone has been architected, engineered, we cant get past the past code passcode on those two phones. Wheren see the problem o, he received a court order, we need access to evidence to see if there are coconspirators, understand who the person was communicating with, and even though we have a lawful means of doing it, there is no technical means for us to get to those phones. Extrapolate that out broader society, the number of cases where people are getting into child pornography, evidence on the phone, yet we cant access it. That is fundamentally the problem we have, where we have authorization, weve gone through all requirements the usrth amendment demands of but we are not in a position to access the evidence. What happened with the saudi shooter xfone . Sujit that shooters phone. Sujit the fbis experts were able to put the phone back together. They said the shooter had shot one of the phones, the other was in pretty bad shape when it was recovered from his car, probably the sdn fbi tried to search, get into the phone. The fbi took about a month, exhausted its internal options, ke of foreign partners unfortunately, none of those partners were able to help us. The thirdparty vendor community, third parties who deal with hacking tools. None of those have worked, so in early january, we reached out to apple and soft the companys assistance in trying to help us get past the security functions the company has put into the phones. Those fbi efforts continue. I will not get into specifics, but the ei continues on its own, using its own tools, to try to gain access. Do you have reached out to the Company Since they designed the products to help us figure out how to get in and execute this lawful court order. You compel apple to break into that phone, and is apple capable of doing that . Sujit there are certainly legal questions around that. Case, San Bernardino similar circumstance, the Justice Department did take apple to court and sue the company under the a federal act. That is the Legal Mechanism that forces a thirdparty to assist federal investigators in the execution of a court order, so that would be the Legal Framework under which any kind of litigation would pursue. Our goal is to avoid litigation and work with the company productively and in a voluntary way to ensure that all the cybersecurity aspects are protected, but that when investigators show up with a court order, they have the ability to execute that order. Peter is there a slippery slope . The loss of privacy . Sujit im glad you mentioned the privacy issue, because remember, the Fourth Amendment, which we have had for over 200 years, under our system, is what draws the line when it comes to privacy. There is no absolute no absolute privacy under u. S. Constitutional law. Inherentlyrantly a balance between privacy and public safety, and the warrant draws the line. When a federal judge weighs pros and cons and decides to award a he or she has checked all the boxes that constitution requires between balancing privacy in public safety, and safety. Favor of public there is no privacy issue here. When you seek a war and you have satisfied the privacy issue. When it comes to a dead terrorist, i would say there is , that is in the legal system but nonetheless, the fbi, because it is a rule of law agency, went to a judge and soft order. Sought think this is the order. Peter is there a comparison to u. S. Mail or email to this case when it comes to phones . Sujit there is a comparison in that anytime we see content as a matter of policy, we seek warrants. If we wanted to search an american or another persons mail within the United States, we go through the Fourth Amendment analysis. We seek lawrence before we search the contents of physical mail, email is the same aim. As a matter of policy, we go to a federal judge, neutral arbiter, get a court order to search the content. It is the same concept when it comes to phones. Your phone has a lot of sensitive personal information about you on it, so when we search it, we make sure we first go to a judge and get that cant to traditional checklist tipped off. Im glad you asked the question, because there are analogs here. Satisfy the Fourth Amendment requirement, we should have access and it is no different with a letter, no different with email, and should be no different with a physical electronic device. What about endtoend encryption and how will that work . Sujit endtoend encryption has significant impacts on Law Enforcement function. Weve spoken publicly, the attorney general and two of his warrant partners issued a public letter to facebook which came out in october of last year, where if facebook were to end to end encrypt all communications on its platform, which the company said it plans to do, that could impact Child Exploitation investigations in because often people who are exploiting children, abusing children, will communicate, try to woo children using Facebook Messenger or communicate over facebook as a website or over instagram. Right now, facebook actually does a pretty good job in monitoring its own networks, so they can see if child pornography is being traded across its networks and when it sees that through the algorithm, it reports it to the center for missing and exploited children, which contact federal or state or local Law Enforcement. Millions of kids were provided to the National Center last year, 18 million tips from facebook. If facebook endtoend encrypts its platforms, the company itself will lose visibility into what is happening on its platforms and the estimation is about 70 to 75 of those tips will go dark. Will never even learned out them, and think of all the children who are being abused as we speak, who we wont be able to track down. That is a very concrete manifestation of what end to end encryption can do. Apple has already endtoend encrypted it i message system, which is similar. If you compare the number of cyber tips facebook reported last year, which was around 18 million, and apple, which reported Something Like 100 or 120, i think, that is the difference. Magicallythat apple runs clean platforms where nobody is engaging in child pornography. No, its that apple has chosen to blind itself to what is happening through its Communications Networks and is unable to produce these tips to the National Center for missing and exploited children. That is a concrete manifestation of what end to end encryption can have on lawenforcement function. We believe in encryption. We want to protect people from having their data stolen. Implementations of encryption, the military grade, laurent proof encryption warrent proof encryption. A lot of people use gmail. Gmail is encrypted from people sending the message, to google servers, to the recipient. Secure means of communication and yet, there is a moment on google servers or the information is decrypted. Why is that . Google wants to filter the material for malware, viruses, to make sure what is happening isnt compromised. Thats also the moment when google can execute a search warrant, so gmail is not warrant proof encrypted. It is very strongly encrypted, but it is not warrant proof encrypted. Thats all we are asking for. Implementation of encryption that keeps communication secure, and yet still allows the processing of court orders. Peter how do other countries do it . Sujit trick question. There are a couple great question. There are a couple ways to look at it. You can go off the spectrum, authoritarian nations like china and russia. They have very intrusive cycle security laws on the books cybersecurity laws on the books and on paper, it requires companies to turn over all sorts of information. That is an open question. We dont know how Companies Like apple are complying or not complying with chinese law. We do know they have made a number of accommodations, particularly in the last year, in response to these authoritarian regimes. A small example is when Chinese Government complained about being in moshi emoji available, the company buckled once the government said to get rid of this. Apple has made accommodations to authoritarian regimes. A more important example is chinese cybersecurity law requires companies doing business in china to store data locally, and to essentially make access to that Data Available on any kind of government request. Apple did not push back. It formed a joint venture with a local chinese company, and as far as we know, is storing all chinese user data in china. Our concern is that the company has already made a number of accommodations to authoritarian regimes which have no due process or rule of law values. Instead, here in america, we are a rule of law society. To us when they push back against us with a lawful order issued by the judge , and we have no insight into authoritarian regimes. The authoritarian country will move regardless of what we do at home but we have seen examples from the united kingdom, australia, other rule of law countries that have enacted legislation because they realize you need to find a balance between privacy and public safety. Investigatorythe powers act, which allows their government access under circumstances. Last year enacted legislation which is a step in the right direction. That ruleing globally of law countries are moving in ways that we support and authoritarian nations are moving in ways that give us considerable pause. Society in United States, we need to be a part of the broader international conversation, because this is such a pressing Public Policy issue. There needs to be an active debate in the United States and unfortunately, right now, it is really the Tech Companies that are making policy. It is their Technical Innovations that are setting the bar and that is not how it should be in a democratic society. Peter peter it seems the two cases we talked about, San Bernardino and pensacola, apple phones. Does it make a difference if this were a korean Samsung Phone . Our legal authorities are company neutral, so from a legal perspective, it wouldnt make any difference which company we are talking about. Sujit peter how much of your time is spent on Digital Currency . Sujit Digital Currencies are a significant part of what i do. Cryptocurrencies have the potential for great innovation. Our concern is it is also for bad an opportunity actors that arent in a regulated space to engage in money flows across borders. Our concern is that the dark web you see a lot of people transacting on the dark went through cryptocurrencies. Our goal is to make sure we have insight into what is happening when people are exchanging money, and it is certainly one of our priorities. Withar to a lawful act, encryption, when there is a court authorized means for Law Enforcement to get information or gain access, that we maintain the ability to gain access. Peter one of the secrets about bitcoin is nobody knows who owns it and where it is located, wrecked . Is an interesting example because you contract Bitcoin Transactions. It is a publicly available ledger. The way Block Chain Technology works is you contract Bitcoin Transactions because they have to be logged in a publicly accessible toger anyone engaging in the transactions. This is something we have spoken about publicly. Bitcoin itself is something we can track under appropriate circumstances. What is concerning to us is there are a number of cryptocurrencies which are more peertopeer. Similar to the Communications Issues we have talked about. There is no centralized ledger. That creates significant investigatory and policy issues for us, terrorist financing issues i mentioned earlier. We have no interest in snooping on people. An interest is when we have authorized court order to be able to gain access or insight into what is happening and increasingly with so many of these currency exchanges located abroad, they dont comply with u. S. Moneylaundering rules. We have considerable concern that a lot of the information is not accessible to us, even with court authorization. Peter where do you gain expertise on these crypto issues . Sujit ive got access to some of the smartest people in the government, and so when we try to inform policy on these issues, we talked to the experts, we talked to prosecutors in the field, our fbi agents, colleagues in the intel community. Did try to gain insight and advocate for reasonable Public Policy. Peter what is the role of congress in developing regulations that we have been discussing . Sujit congress has an active role. The people rule and it will be up to congress to come up with intelligible, reasonable rules in this area. There is an active conversation on capitol hill as we speak and were contributing to that as appropriate. Peter sujit raman is the associate Deputy Attorney general and has been our guest on the communicators. And joining us on the communicators is jim baker. Mr. Baker, how does one become the general counsel of the fbi . By james ive worked in the department of justice for a long time and among other things in terms of gaining technical expertise, i also build a lot of relationships. One of those was with my boss when he was Deputy Attorney general, jim comey. We worked together at the doj and in the private sector and when he became director, he asked me to take on that job. P peter how long were you in that position . James four years. Peter what did the technical part of that job entail . James multiple things, really. The general counsel, so a lawyers job. He have to be a lawyer, so knowing enough about the important areas of the law that the fbi deals with in order to figure to spot issues, out whose help you need, how to answer questions from senior executives, how to bring in the right people. Goal was toys my make sure the bureau got the best answer there was. Sometimes, that might not be me giving the answer, but usually involved other experts, either from within the bureau, department of justice, or other government agency. Peter in your fbi career, and especially as general counsel, did you find year after year, the increase in technical or Technology Cases increasing . James absolutely. Over the years. I worked at the department of andice from 1991 to 2018 absolutely, technology became much more important, to the point that really today, i think are not competently representing their clients if they dont have a sufficient understanding of technology. This is something i preach frequently to the folks that worked with me in the office of general counsel and elsewhere in the fbi and doj. Ofdoesnt matter what area law you working today, you need to understand technology sufficiently better than you need sufficiently. That does not mean writing code, but it means spotting the legal issues out there, address concerns her clients have come of the clients, the people the fbi trying to do investigations or investigation support are using technology and need help making sure they stay within the requirements of the law and to the extent the law needs to be changed that the lawyers are involved in the process and understand what is going on to make appropriate changes. Peter why did you leave the fbi in 2018 . James i left the fbi in 2018 because as you heard, jim comey got fired and Christopher Wray became director. I stayed and worked for him a period of time. We worked together at the department of justice and it was logical at some point that chris wanted someone new and he asked if i would step aside and i said ok. Peter one of the issues you dealt with was the San Bernardino shooting. Gabby yes james yes. Peter remind us what that was and your role. James this was a terrorist attack in 2015, december, if i am not mistaken, and many people were killed and wounded and the information we had was that it was conducted by an isisaffiliated person or persons who claimed to be affiliated with isis. It was a terrorist attack on the United States, and we realized that the perpetrators had, among other things, an iphone. An iphone, given how people use anyoneogy today, smartphone is likely to have a lot of information about that person activities, their networks, their contact. It seemed basic and logical that the fbi would want to get access to that persons iphone, so i led the fbis legal efforts with respect trying to do just that. Peter what was the outcome . James the outcome was that we , the fbi, through the department of justice, became involved in litigation with apple about that because apple has a different view about whether it should be required to alter how its systems worked in order to be provide us with that access, so the doj agreed, we went to court. In the lipid core process, a third party came forward and said they thought they had a solution that would enable the fbi to get into the phone without having the assistance of apple. They came forward, provided us with the solution, we tested it, and assessed that it worked for that particular iphone and therefore, as a legal matter, t. E case was moo we didnt need the assistance of the court anymore took off her shower ejected so the department of justice were fired to withdraw the suit were required to withdraw the suit. Peter as a societal matter, do you still support the idea that we need to get into that phone . James well, i guess it depends on what you buy that mean by that. Encryption of devices or other systems such as end and messaging applications, those pose real challenges. For Law EnforcementLaw Enforcement as a general matter does not have a way to reliably access the communications in those kinds of situations where the data or communications are encrypted. There is a real need their. However, society has other interests that are important both to Law Enforcement and all of us, such as cybersecurity. Cybersecurity, nicking sure that our systems, our data, our information is secure from the bad guys come and there are many malicious cyber actors we need to protect against. Society wants to make sure we are secure, Law Enforcement wants to make sure we are secure in a cyber way youd we also want to way. Privacy. Ant to protect i think we also want to make sure in society that our companies are competitive on the world stage, that they are innovative and able to achieve great things and not be overregulated or required to design things to government specifications the minute they are created. Not saying that folks should not think about security, but how heavyhanded the government needs to be with the development of new technologies, and also i think its in the longterm interests of the United States to make sure we protect human rights around the world, and encrypted devices and systems peopleople protect, help defend themselves against repressive authoritarian regimes around the world. Is, how do youn do all of those things simultaneously, have a system that actually works and a secure and reliable way yet provide Law Enforcement access when it has lawful process to do that . We have been trying for literally decades now, and as a society, both Law Enforcement, lawmakers, policymakers, technologists, Civil Liberties organizations, we have not found a solution that simultaneously and adequately addresses all of those. Peter where are you landing today . James congress has known about these problems a long time. Fbi, i madet the a lot of this issue. Attorney general barr recently has reinvigorated the Department Efforts and this regard. Congress knows Law Enforcement has an issue. Congress also knows there are other equities out there and has not acted. It has not passed a law to require the companies to change how they go about doing their ban encryptedo devices or systems. Why . They provide a lot of benefits for society. As i said earlier, especially with cybersecurity. Congress is really the entity in society that is best equipped to balance those equities, and so far it has not acted. That is reality. Given that reality, and i am not sure even with the department of justices renewed effort, im not sure congress will change the law. Given that and the fact that Society Faces what i think of as an existential risk from malicious cyber actors, meaning we are so independent so dependent on these systems that are vulnerable, we are so dependent on them for so many things in society, we all know how integrated Digital Technology is in our lives, that a catastrophic failure could represent an existential threat to the adequate functioning of society to protect the health, safety and welfare of all americans and citizens in the countries of our allies around the world. I am quite worried about that. One of the ways to protect ourselves is encryption. It helps protect us against malicious cyber actors, including nationstates. My view is Law Enforcement needs to rethink its approach to encryption in light of the fact that congress will not act and in light of the fact there are significant Cyber Threats and embrace encryption set of trying to find ways so called it. Thus not really what Law Enforcement is trying to do, but in other words, it needs to break encryption to enhance cybersecurity and therefore the security of all americans, and i think that is a better approach at this juncture. We just had another shooting in pensacola and they tried to get into the saudi have phone and they might sleeper cells. We need protection from that as well . Absolutely, but there is no law that requires apple or any other company similarly situated to reengineer their systems in order to provide that access. If Congress Wants that and thinks it is important, Congress Needs to pass a law to require apple and other companies to do that. Far,ess has not done so so in part i think because members of congress are reasonably hesitant to do something that will expose everybody to major cybersecurity risk. Peter why are you here at the state of the net . James to continue to talk publicly about these issues because i have invested a substantial metamy career in them and i think they are radically important to the security and Constitutional Rights of americans, and making sure there is a robust, informed public debate about them is critically important to me personally, and i hope we can find a way forward collectively as a society, that we can come together on these issues, because we all are significantly infested invested. Getting it right is critically important to the country, so whatever i can do to make the debate more robust, i am happy to do that. With any group that will listen to me. In theanother thing news, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court system. Is that working . Is definitely in need of modifications and reform in a lot of different ways. There are two Different Things to think about, the law and the process by which the government implements the law. General reportr recently revealed, there were ,ignificant mistakes, omissions errors, in particular the fbi committed, that i am not going to defend, and are not inspector, and so the general, the fisa court, the fbi and Justice Department, are focused intently on that right now. I think that is a good thing and if changes need to be made to the process, so be it. That would be a good and helpful thing because the American People need to have confidence that system works, because it is critical to protecting their privacy and security. , in the back from that current digital era in which we live, i am concerned whether fisa as a whole, and im talking mainly about the statute, adequately protects our security and privacy. Things have changed so dramatically in the past 25 years that i think it is time to take another look at whether the fundamental precept that underline the fisa statutes work in this environment. Flows fromlot, a lot a determination that one of the people involved in the communication is a u. S. Citizen or in the United States. Those things are increasingly hard to determine in real time. As a result, we have seen over the past several years, mistakes are made by the government with respect to that or the government hesitates to collect certain communications, and that doesnt help anybody. If there is hesitancy or confusion with respect to obtaining, processing, analyzing and protecting the communications of americans. I think we need to rethink how we do that. I dont have an answer today how to precisely do that but i think its worth taking a look at. Peter how much of what we have talked about so far today stems from 9 11 . Ames well, 9 11 was watershed event for the country, for the world really, for intelligence agencies and Law Enforcement. It changed how lawenforcement thinks about all of these issues and accelerated substantially the pace at which the fbi needed to operate. Theoincided with substantial evolution of internet communications. That was happening at the same time. And the fbi has been expected since 9 11 really to have zero errors, right . To make sure there are no additional attacks of that scale on the u. S. It has not been perfect, obviously there have been many smaller scale, even if you include austin, which was a major event for the city of boston and the nation. Just comparing it to 9 11. The fbis responsibility is to be perfect and that puts on the fbi and tremendous amount of pressure, so that when you come to it situation like San Bernardino or pensacola, the fbi logically is expected to make sure it has turned over every rock and followed every Investigative Lead to make sure no other plots or a foot and any other perpetrators have been apprehended and disrupted. That is why i think the fbi is so adamant about trying to address this problem, and not take to itself powers it should not have, but to Tell Congress to make sure that it understands this is a significant problem. That is how i think about it. Peter what are you doing today . James today i was speaking at this conference, and the following events with respect to impeachment, because i am a cnn legal analyst and called upon on a regular basis to talk about those topics. That is a fulltime job just keeping up with impeachment. Peter i apologize, what you do for a living . James i am the director for ational security at nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in washington, d. C. I am a cnn legal analyst and i also teach a Law School Course at harvard law school. Peter jim baker has been our guest. Thank you for your time. Just a reminder, this communicators was good program and all others are available as andcommunicators program all others are available as podcasts. Join us saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern for the results of the nevada caucuses. Precinct results, candidate speeches from joe biden, senators bernie sanders, Elizabeth Warren and amy klobuchar. Pete buttigieg and tom steyer. And your calls about campaign 2020. Live coverage on cspan, on demand at sea stand out of work, or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Sunday night on q a, we discussed notable speakers of the house with matthew green. Weve come a long way from the days of sam rayburn and dwight eisenhower, the idea that you Work Together even if youre in separate elected institutions, the idea that the speaker in particular should be deferential to the president , thats not what we are seeing now. There is a way in which that is a sign of a healthy, vigorous policy Party Differences but what troubles me, and i have written about this, there are certain ways in which our elected officials we expect to share some common agreement on issues or at least a sense that they have important roles to plays, institutional roles, and should rise above all of the differences. Watch sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Created by cable in 1979 and brought to you today by your television provider. The secretaries of the army, navy and air force talked about defenseidents 2021 budget and the Pentagon Acquisition process. From the center for strategic and international studies, this is about an hour