James Comey Says 'Dozens' Of Terrorists Have Eluded The FBI Thanks To Encryption

The administration won't back FBI Director James Comey's push for encryption backdoors. Neither will Congress, at least not at this point. (But just give 'em one terrorist attack") Former intelligence officials have written off backdoored encryption as a lost cause, if not a genuinely bad idea. But Comey continues to peddle his "gone dark" future to whoever will listen. In this case, it was the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The Committee wanted a ballpark estimate of the "going dark" problem. Comey delivered, with an answer both incredibly vague and completely underwhelming.

The Department of Justice has in the past demurred when asked to approximate the scale of what officials often call the "going dark problem." But pressed by committee chairman Ron Johnson on how many terror suspects his agents have actually lost track of because of encryption, Comey on Wednesday gave the closest thing to a statistic that the department has publicly shared.

"Probably the best number I can give in an open setting is dozens," Comey said.

It's a great answer, if you like unverifiable claims that suggest anywhere from 24 to hundreds of terrorists are now operating beyond the reach of subpoenas and national security letters. (Although you'd think if it was hundreds, Comey would have said hundreds.) This answer is about as precise as the "0-999" bands the government forces private companies to use when reporting government requests for user data. What it isn't, however, is a ringing endorsement of Comey's "going dark" narrative. Not that one committee member didn't try to help out Comey with his story.

Johnson seemed taken aback at the response and moved on to ask another question. Later, he returned to the FBI director's answer.

"I'm a little concerned about numbers, but I will say, I'm surprised if it is only a couple dozen people who have been inspired by social media and then moved into encrypted accounts," Johnson said.

Whatever the number actually is, it's high enough for Comey. And high enough for Johnson. And, coincidentally, it's also the same (approximate) number of potential ISIS recruits the FBI has managed to "disrupt," according to Comey.

FBI counterterrorism agents followed dozens of potential militants around the United States full time over the summer and disrupted activities pursued by many of them, FBI Director James Comey told a congressional committee on Thursday.

Comey also told the committee this:

He said Islamic State militants had become expert at attracting potential recruits through social media pitches, and had mastered how to coax promising recruits into using private communications channels.

"When they find a live one, they will move them off Twitter, and move them to an end-to-end encrypted messaging app," Comey said. He said without a court order, the FBI could not read such encrypted message traffic.

This statement makes it sound as though "going dark" isn't a problem with technology, but a problem with paperwork. Either the FBI's used to getting this stuff without it, or having suspects fall off the social media grid makes obtaining court orders a little more difficult. Either way, it doesn't exactly sound like punching holes in encryption is the only way the FBI can stay abreast of the latest in terrorist chatter.

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