Along with the director what our options might be as we proceed forward. This is something i would recommend all of the members that they become educated in on a periodic basis. Because this is not the end of Technology Advances and therefore this is not the last challenge were going to be faced with from a technology standpoint. Senator langford. Thank you mr. Chairman and you are right, this is not the last one this is the latest Technology Battle were dealing with. George comey thank you for your work and pass on to the folks that work some very long hours leading up to july the 4th our appreciation for what they did for the nation and the citizens of my state and people around the country. We do appreciate their work very much and you have a terrific team. The challenge we face on this is not only on the Technology Side and dealing with terrorism, it is the benefit gained from this. I would say the folks at opm would be glad that touk about to talk about encryption if they would have kept their date you in a encrypted location whether it be retailers around the country or banks or government agency, we are benefiting from encryption and the technology invented. The hard part is the other side of it. And we have to have a balance in the conversation because we absolutely need encrypted technology because we are very skpoesed and finding out the ways that our information is exposed and we need that technology to advance on one side as we deal with Cyber Security and basic Law Enforcement and real threats for physical security we have to have a different capability and that is the complicating factor of this. With that, in that conversation talk to me about Legal Frameworks. If someone goes on social media and they have child pornography this is a criminal issue. If someone goes on to social media and says here is a group of people to kill and we would like you to kill them and here is some ideas to do that talk to me about the Legal Framework between the to because there is a step before this that is the recruiting and the group of individuals recruiting is looking for people that believe like we do which is not the problem but will also act out and kill people. Help me understand the frameworks there. Well if someone is on social media, talking about the possibility or offering any kind of criminal activity, which includes terrorism because it is a criminal act as well right. That is predicate for an fbi investigation. Using lawful tools and judicial orders to find out what is going on there and who are these people. And im talking the step before that then and that is what im talking about now. The social media site. What does that trigger at that point or do you begin the investigation, you begin the process obviously of trying to track this down. Because they are encouraging a criminal act on american soil but then you have extra communication that is happening now in the encrypted level. Is that what im picking up . Yes. They are broadcasting the poison through twitter. They are 21,000 followers now in english and theyll have twitter following communications so tweets back and forth and then direct messaging through twitter all of which with lawful process, we can get access to and evaluate. And if it looks like someone and this is how isil operates. If the person appears to be serious, theyll say move to this mobile messaging app which is encrypted end to end and that is when we lose them. And we have as i said earlier, we have no ability if we intercept that mobile messaging app data traveling back and forth, we can intercept the data but it is gobbledy goop. And so the platforms, they see no issue, once it is an illegal activity happening on their platform. Is their response to say you cant do that on this platform or their response is were open for anything whether it is prostitution, child porn or terrorism, you can use it. Oh, im sorry, i misunderstood the question. They are being quite good about it and it is getting increasingly good. Twitter does not want people engaging in soliciting criminal activity of any sort on their social media platform. But they are being particularly aggressive at shutting down and trying to stop isilrelated sites. And i think it led isil to threaten to kill the ceo and helped them to understand the problem in a better way. They are being quite good about that. Okay. And then you have alluded twice now that the u. K. And france are a little bit ahead on this and you discussed this. Can you give us greater detail on what they are discussing. When you say they are a little bit ahead on us i think it is rare for europe to be ahead of us on anything so help me understand what you mean by that. I dont want to swell the brits heads. They have passed legislation called drippa, i dont remember what it stands for, that requires data prevention retention and providers must comply with lawful orders for data moving on their network and so they are ahead of us in that theyve passed a legislative package that addresses in part what were talking about here. Where they are not ahead of us they have to figure out how will that work when all of the providers are in the United States. And so how will they enforce the legislation if they want data from someone who is located in california and all of the infrastructure is in california, how will they make that a reality. Okay. Thank you. I yield back. Senator risch. Thank you, senator. Director comey those of us on the Committee Meet regularly with heads of state and people like you from other countries. Interestingly the top question to us and the top concern to us is similar from what we get from the American Press and the American People and that is that this whole thing is that this whole thing has gotten to the point where the most serious problem are the lone wolf people who are either inspired or directed from out of their country to do something. And of course the most recent and horrific example is what happened in tunisia just last week. And without obviously we are in an open session i understand that. But i would like to give you the opportunity to talk to the American People and tell them how what a concern this is for you how this fits in your priorities and what you are doing about this in matters that are unclassified. Could you do that for me, please. Sure. Thank you, senator. Isil is reaching into the United States, to all 50 states, trying to motivate troubled souls, and increasingly kids to either come to their caliphate or kill where you are. And social media this investment buzzing in your pocket all day long it works. It works to sell shoes it works to sell cars and works to motivate troubled souls to do bad things. We are now reaping the results of a year long effort by isil to invest in the social media push which is why you see so many arrests by the fbi and these are the disruptions of stopping people from shooting innocent people or behead them. 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 because it is an important thing but we need their help. In almost every case someone saw something. Someone saw Something Weird that didnt seem right. We have folks to tell us. Human nature is hair on the back of your neck saying i must have misunderstood. If everyone is having a bad day. But when someone has hair stand up on the back of their neck saying that guy doesnt seem right, and tell somebody so we can check it out. We need to help. Because this spans all 50 states, we have state and local Law Enforcement helping us the good folks of america, if you see something out of place, just Say Something and well check it out. You can tell any Police Officer or deputy in the United States since 9 11 and weve gotten our act together and that information will get within minutes to the right people. Director comey thank you for that and appreciate what you and your organization does. And we all know that youve got to be right every day, 100 of the time and they only have to be right once and youre doing a good job and keep up the good work. Thank you, senator. Director, were going to take just a few more questions and just make this note for members. Weve got a series of five stacks votes starting at 4 30. I want to try to sort of wrap a lot of things that you talked about because people have asked individual pieces of this question on going dark. 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 system and where the break point 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 youve chased them out of the country, youve just made the problem much worse versus better. Can you help us dissect that . Yes. The reason this is the hardest problem ive seen in my career in government is we have important Public Safety issues that weve talked about that i think everybody agrees are implicated by the universal strong encryption and then we have innovation which is unbelievably important and the engine of our amazing country and we have security, as a number of senators have said, i care a lot about Cyber Security. I love strong encryption. So how do we take all of those things we care about, innovation and jobs security on the internet and security for ordinary people from crime and terrorism, how do we do we optimize them all. And as i said, some smart people say if you do anything it will destroy the internet or chase the business overseas. And so i do think we have to engage on the technical solution with smart people and think about is there an International Aspect to this and again im making this up but ought not the civilized rule of countries agree to something that makes sense. And some people say if we do this for you, we have to do it for china. If china wants you to do for them what i want you to do which is require to go to an independent judge, and show probable cause and get a written order and be subject to the constraint and over sight that would be great for the chinese people. I dont think they would like that. And im less worried about china. But im worried about the point of chasing business to other parts of the western world which is why i think we have to be thoughtful about it. We certainly get that part and well follow that up with some tech Company Questions at a hearing. Now before i turn to the vice chairman, 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 related to the bureau, i want you 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. Well, as i said earlier we work for the American People. I hope folks know people who work in the bureau. We are ordinary people. We use the tools you gave us. And im here not to scare the American People but to say to the owners of the fbi, i have a problem and i need help fixing it so i can continue to do my job. But make no mistake about it the folks who work at it, well stay it at every single day and around the clock and we think it is irresponsible not to tell the shareholders, the people from the fbi, the challenges we are facing so we can figure out if we can address it. But my folks, on tv sometimes we look great and sometimes not, and in movies sometimes not and the director is doing exciting things that i would rip an achilles doing but we are ordinary people who have chosen not to make a good living but to make a different kind of life. We love this work. We love working for you and we are simply here to tell you sort of give you a status report on how is it going with the tools youve given us. Vice chair. Thank you, mr. Chairman. This committee passed out the intelligence authorization bill i think on june 24th. And in that bill we put a provision which would require Technology Companies to inform the appropriate authority when they obtain knowledge of terrorist activity. Now this is modelled after an existing law which requires Technology Companies to notify authorities about cases of child pornography. But if doesnt 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 too. What do you think of that . It is an interesting idea. Ive heard about it. My folks have told me about it. I havent read it or studied it and i frankly cant give you an intelligent answer. It is an interesting answer. I do find in practice they are good about telling us what they see. So that is i hate to give you a nonanswer. We do that for child pornography. Dont you think we should do it for probable terrorist acts . Maybe. But i havent heard i would want to hear out the other side oh, dear. I want to make sure im not missing something. Again, i havent read it. Im dumb enough when i know something, this is something i havent read to give you an intelligent answer. Okay. Mr. Comey one last question. If the United States were to require our companies doing business here to ensure government access to encrypted communications, would you expect that foreign governments would create the same require. Ment for Companies Operating there. I think they might. Or might try to. And i will tell you that in my view, that would clearly be the outcome. I think that would make american individuals and businesses more vulnerable to surveillance by foreign governments. And i want to leave you with one last thought. Ive been on this committee for 14 years so i kind of get a sense where something is headed. Ain think mr. Director where this is headed is towards proposals for some kind of stockpile of Encryption Keys. I dont think we have it flushed out where centers want to go. But i get the sense that is where this is going. There should be a stockpile of Encryption Keys for government to access. I want you to know im willing to work with you on ideas here. But i think this proposal is a bigtime loser. It is a loser on security grounds for the reasons that i mentioned, it is a retreat on privacy, and i think it will do great damage to our cuttingedge Digital Companies that have jobs that pay good wages. So i hope were not going to go there. I just want you to know my sense, having listened to a couple of hours of this and listening to this mornings testimony where i think this is headed and i think it is the wrong way to proceed. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator martin heinrich. Director comey, youve said this before but i want to say it again. Thank you to all of your personnel, not just in recent weeks but efforts that go unsung year in and year out. I want to thank you for the amount of humility youve shown today. I think it is helpful at wrapping our heads around how we should proceed on this. Because i think that the most dangerous thing is to jump to a solution that turns out to be the wrong solution. I have some ideas that i wont share in open session, that ill share with you and share with my colleagues here about places we should be investing right now to address some of these concerns. And ill just reiterate, i think we would be making a a mistake if we immediately jump forward and say we passed a law tomorrow that prohibited strong end to end encryption with temporary expiring keys. And effectively, what we did, under that scenario, or at least 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 americans data at risk while protecting theirs effectively. So i think we need to think through all of that to make sure that at the end of day were were getting at the people causing the problem and were not building in weakness into the protection of our own countrys data, be it the government or individuals who expect their financial data, their healthcare data all of the things that we use online now to remain private. So 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 realizing that were not going to have all of the answers immediately and we shouldnt jump to answers before we completely understand the problem. Thank you, senator. I agree that something has to be approached carefully. I think it is the hardest problem ive seen in government. The stakes are very, very high on all sides of this. I think we care about the same thing. Whether from industry or government. And i think that is one of the great things about this country. We do hard stuff. When we talk about it together and figure it out together, especially when the whole effort is around shared values. Ill leave you with one last thought, weve heard about the amazing innovations of Silicon Valley and i tend to agree that on the business front, incredible stuff comes out of there all of the time. 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 the solutions may make even better sense in this scenario. So thank you once again, director. Thank you senator heinrich. I would think less of you if you didnt get the plug in there on the lab before you left. And i wont speak for the vice chair, but if anything i