Barr Says Encryption, Dark Web, Pose Growing Threat to Law Enforcement
Attorney General William Barr urged the new President’s Commission on Law Enforcement Wednesday to explore the threat of technology. Barr noted the last such commission was in 1965. “The incredible pace of technological change has meant the rapid evolution of…
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new ways to commit and conceal crimes,” he said. Barr cited warrant-proof encryption of devices and use of “the dark web to sexually exploit the most vulnerable members of society.” President Donald Trump’s tweeted (see 2001150019) last week that Apple should “unlock phones used by killers, drug dealers and other violent criminal elements.” Apple and Google must voluntarily provide better device access, or Congress will force them to alter encryption standards, Senate Judiciary Committee members said during a December hearing (see 1912100039). “Barr and other government officials have called for tech companies to create intentional vulnerabilities,” Engine blogged now: Justice officials “upped their anti-encryption rhetoric in the last few weeks after locating two locked and encrypted iPhones belonging to the shooter in the Naval Air Station Pensacola shooting last month that killed three U.S. Navy sailors.”