"We are not asking to expand the government's surveillance authority, but rather we are asking to ensure that we can continue to obtain electronic information and evidence pursuant to the legal authority that Congress has provided to us to keep America safe," read the joint prepared remarks (PDF) of Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates. "Mr. Chairman, the Department of Justice believes that the challenges posed by the Going Dark problem are grave, growing, and extremely complex."
To counter this, the duo said the government is actively developing its own decryption tools. The remarks said:
We should also continue to invest in developing tools, techniques, and capabilities designed to mitigate the increasing technical challenges associated with the Going Dark problem. In limited circumstances, this investment may help mitigate the risks posed in high priority national security or criminal cases, although it will most likely be unable to provide a timely or scalable solution in terms of addressing the full spectrum of public safety needs.
The Senate hearing comes among a growing chorus of government officials calling for these encryption backdoors. Apple has come under attack by some government officials for making its latest iPhone encrypted by default. Such a configuration likely precludes the authorities from accessing data on iPhones directly from a locked device's hardware even with a warrant.
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