Discussion that will happen on capitol hill today. Host good morning, democrats line. Caller thank you for taking my culprit i wanted to know how you figured that the cdc dropped the ball when they tell you the Health Care Workers taking care of that man in texas they were going to watch every day and take their temperatures everyday and the woman was allowed to leave the state and get him a plane. They did not know she was leaving the state, and that is a critical call to keep her, watching her every day. If they are lying to you about that, they are lying about the way the disease is spread. Theyre dressed up like the michelin man and they still caught the disease. Now you are on an airplane, sitting on a seat that should be contaminated that she was in. Thank you. Guest the cdc has initially declared the Health Care Workers, 75 or so that had ncan,t contact with hidu they were going to do self mymonitoring. Selfmonitoring. We learned that the patient still had contacts with others, and one got on an airplane with a temperature of 99. 5 degrees. Technically a fever. We now have the cdc saying they are taking a tougher stance on that and prohibiting Public People theyy of the are monitoring for this right now. The cdc has gotten incrementally tougher as the days have gone by , and this thing has spread a little bit. So that was the question you asked is a question and a lot of people ask. Nurses were wearing protective gear, but there is a question about whether they put the gear on the wrong way and too much gear on, and when they took it off it was easier to transmit virus, too many layers of gloves. We heard nurses talk about lack of training and oversight, shortages and how they were monitoring this. The cdc responded to this yesterday by saying we are putting our people there to monitor every step of the way so there are not any questions or people are protected somehow the Health Care Workers are protected. Going forward, now we should see this thing not spreading to new Health Care Workers because the going tothere are not be gaps, because there will be experts making sure people are putting gear on and off properly and handling patients properly. Host is there a Single Person at the white house overseeing these agencies . Caller that would be sylvia burwell, thae secretary of the health and human services. She was on a Conference Call with reporters yesterday and said little, other than they were coordinating with Homeland Security on ensuring that the nation was kept safe from the spread of ebola. Ed overtty much hand to the cdc director on how they were trying to control the spread of the disease. There have been comments by lawmakers and other saying lets create a position, have somebody overseeing all of this, and there has been discussion of that. So far we have not appointed anyone to that position. That could change. Bonita,eveland, ohio, hello. Caller good morning. I think we need to close our borders frick we cannot just ban people from west africa because could have gone to another country and taken a plane to the United States. We already had an incident in ohio. All of us are wary here, in the not going to put them down and i do not think really think i we need to close our borders. We cannot let nobody over here, just like this man came over here, the first place he went over to west africa to visit, and then he came back, and, boom. Have a good day. Host are you still there . Caller yeah. Concern . T is your caller you got a lot of people good morning, everyone, lakota brookings. Welcome to brookings. This event will set a brookings record for the height differential between guests and host. Im kidding. The director is actually not that short. Very recentg to be because we have limited time, and the more of it i use the less that we can use for dialogue between you guys and the director. Director comey is here to talk about encryption and the problems it creates for Law Enforcement. This is a subject that a number of people here testified to the amount of interest in the subject all over the place right post a lot ofden, debates about surveillance reform. Differenthas a respect of is about the impact related to the federal and state lawenforcement. The format will be simple. He is going to give a relatively brief set of remarks. Im going to ask. We areing to ask going to move to a conversational format, ask a few questions, and then we will go to you and use as much of the time as possible for questions from the audience. When i do that, we are going to do that, you know, as trying to formatn as uninterrupted as possible. Please signal to me if you want to get in, and wait for the mike to come around, and introduce name andby your organizational affiliation. Keep your questions brief so we can have as significant a discussion as possible. I will turn it over to the director, who needs no introduction to this audience. Ill come back to brookings welcome back to brookings. A small difference. I will adjust that mike. Good morning, everybody. It is great to be here at brookings. Im told also i am going to be the subject of a recorded podcast. What i would like to do you share thoughts with you and for me, the most important part will be our conversation together. I thank you in advice for asking whatever is on your mind. I have been on this job now for one year and one month. Myetimes i joke and express tenure in months remaining as if i am incarcerated or something. I do not mean that. I have i believe the best job in the world, because i get to come to work at the fbi every day. Over the last year have confirmed what i have long believed that the fbi is remarkable place, filled with amazing people, doing amazing work all over the country and the world every day. I have confirmed what i have long known, that a commitment to the rule of law and Civil Liberties is at the core of the fbi. I believe it is the organizations spine. ,e confront serious threats threats that are changing every single day, and i want to make sure i have every lawful tool available to make sure i am addressing those trips. I see this as an opportunity to begin a conversation about something that is affecting in a serious way the investigative work we do. I want to talk to you about the impacts of emerging technology on Law Enforcement, and within that context it is important to talk about the work we do at the fbi, what we need to do the work that we have been entrusted to do. I believe there are a fair number of misconceptions in the public discussion of all what we in government collect, especially we at the fbi, and the capabilities we have for collecting information. As fast as ib is can to explain and clarify as i can the work of the fbi, but i want to get a better handle on your thoughts, because those of us in Law Enforcement cannot do with what we need to do without your trust and support, and we have no monopoly on wisdom. My goal is not to tell people what to do. Fellow is to urge our citizens to participate in a conversation as a country about where we are, where we want to to especially with respect Law Enforcement authorities. Let me start by talking about the challenge of what we call going dark. Technology has forever changed the world we live in. All of you notice every single day. We are online, in one way or another, all day long. Many of us are online at night when we should be sitting. Our phones and computers have become perfections of our personalities, that reflect interests and identities, hold much of what is important to us in life. If that comes a desire to protect privacy and our data. We want to be able to share our lives with the people we choose to share our lives with. I very much feel that way. The fbi also has a sworn duty to try to keep every american safe from crime and from terrorism, and technology has become a tool of choice for some very dangerous people. Unfortunately, the law has not kept pace with technology, and this this connect has created significant Public Safety problems that we have long described as going dark. What it means is this those charged with protecting our people are not always able to access the evidence we need to prosecute crime and prevent terrorism even with Lawful Authority. We have the Legal Authority to intercept and access to vacations pursuant to a court to Access Communications per cert personally to a court order. We face two priorities. The first involves Realtime Data in motion, such as phone calls or emails or live text or chat sessions. Concernsd challenge Court Ordered access to data stored on our devices. Such as email or Text Messages or photos or videos, what we call data at rest. And both realtime syndication, data and motion, and store data, data at rest, are increasingly encrypted. Let me talk about courtordered interception and about the challenges posed by the proliferation of different means of communication and encryption. Doing electronic surveillance was straightforward. We identified a target phone, used by a bad guy, with a single without a court order for a wiretap, and under the supervision of a judge, we collected the evidence we needed for prosecution. Today there are countless countless networks, countless means of communicating. We have laptops, smartphones, tablets, we take them to work, school, we take them the soccer field to the starbucks, over many different networks, using many different apps. Conspiring toe harm us. They use the same devices come the same networks, the same apps to make plans to target victims and cover up what they are doing, and that makes it tough for us to keep up. If a suspected criminal is in the car, and he switches from cellular coverage to wifi, we may be out of luck. If he switches from one app to another or from cellular Voice Service to a messaging app, we may lose them. We may not have the ability to switch lawful surveillance between devices, methods, and networks. The bad guys know this. They are taking advantage of this every day. In the wake of the snowden disclosures, the prevailing view is that the government is sweeping up all of our communications. That is not true. Idea thetely, the government has access to all communications at all times has extended even more unfairly to Law Enforcement, that is working to obtain individual warrants approved by judges, intercept indications of suspected criminals. Some believe that Law Enforcement and the fbi has these phenomenal capabilities to access any information at any time. We can get what we want by flipping a switch. That is the project too much television. It frustrates me because i want people to understand that Law Enforcement needs to be able to Access Communications and information in a lawful way to bring people to justice. We do that pursuant to the rule of law with clear lines and strict oversight. Even with Lawful Authority, the going dark problem is we may not be able to access the evidence and information we need. Current law governing the interception of two medications requires that the Communications Carriers and broadband providers build interception capabilities into their networks for Court Ordered surveillance. But that law, the Communications Assistance to lawenforcement act, was connected to the years ago, a lifetime in the internet age. It does not cover at all new means of communication. Thousands of companies provide some form of Syndication Service and most are not required by statute to provide lawful intercept capabilities to Law Enforcement. What that means is that in order an order from a judge to monitor taken vacation may amount to nothing more than a piece of paper. Some Companies Fail to comply with the order, and some companies cannot comply because they have not developed the capabilities. Other providers want to provide assistance, but they have to take the time to build intersection capabilities which takes a lot of time. The issue is whether companies not subject currently to this law should be required to build lawful intercept capabilities for Law Enforcement. To be clear, we are not seeking authority to intercept negations. We are struggling to keep up with changing technology and maintain our ability to actually collect vacations we are authorized to collect. If the challenges of Real Time Data interception threatened to leave us in the dark, encryption threatens to lead us all to a very dark place. Here is what i mean by that. Encryption is nothing new. But the challenge to Law Enforcement and National Security officials is markedly worse with recent default encryption settings and encrypted devices and networks all in the name of increased security and privacy. For example, with apples new operating system, the information stored on many phones and devices will be encrypted by default. Shortly after the announcement, google announced lands to follow suit with its android operating system. This means the companies themselves will not be able to andck phones, laptops tablets to reveal photos or documents or email for stored text and recordings in those instruments. Both companies are run by good people who care deeply about Public Safety and National Security. I know that. And they are responding to a market demand that they perceive. But the place that this is leading us is one that i suggest we should not go without careful thought and debate as a country. At the outset, the good folks at apple Say Something that is reasonable, which is is not that big a deal, because Law Enforcement can still get the data from the clouds. Folks are going to back up their devices to the cloud, and the fbi can access the cloud. Heres the problem uploading to the cloud does not include all of the stored data on the , which has thes potential to create a blackhole in and of itself, but, second, if the bad guys do not that up their phones routinely or if they opt out of uploading to the cloud, the data will only be found on the encrypted devices himself. It is themselves. It is the people who are worried about the device who are most likely to avoid the clout and to make sure that Law Enforcement cannot access in creating data. Encryption just is not a technical feature. It is part of a marketing strategy. It will have very serious consequences for Law Enforcement and National Security agencies at all levels. Sophisticated criminals will come to count on these means of eve eating detection. Detection. Ading it is equivalent of opening a safe deposit that cannot be opened, a safe that cannot ever be cracked. My question to facilitators in this conversation is, at what cost . To correct impressions that are connected to the spirit the first is folks say, good folk say, you still have access to metadata which includes photo records and Location Information stored with the telecommunication carriers, and that is absolutely true. Metadata does not provide the content of any communication, it is incomplete information, and even that is developed access and when time is of the efforts. I wish we had time and armor, especially when lives are on the line. We usually do not. There is a misconception is that is building a back door. That also is not true. We are not seeking a backdoor approach. We want to use the front door with transparency. We want clear guidance provided by law. We are completely comfortable with court orders and legal process, front doors that provide us the evidence and information we need to investigate crime and prevent attacks. Are goingrsaries to try to exploit vulnerabilities they find, but we think it makes more sense to address any security risks by developing interception solutions at the front and in the design phase rather than resorting to Patchwork Solutions when Law Enforcement comes knocking after the fact. With the sophisticated encryption there may be no solution at all, even the government at a dead end, all in the name of privacy and network security. Folks sometimes say you could guess the password or break it with a socalled brute force attack. Heres the truth even with a supercomputer, we would have difficulty with todays highlevel encryption, and some users have a setting where the encryption key is raised after too many attempts to break the password, meaning no one can access the data. Sometimes i have also heard folks ask this question, cant you to compel the owners of the device to provide you the password . The answer that is a reasonable question, but unfortunately, no. Even if we could compel them, as a legal matter, and about the choice that that bad guy has to make. Imagine a Child Predator infested a refusing to comply with a direction from the court to hand over a password, or a sentence for the charge of distribution of chopper in order for of child pornography . Think about your life without smart phones or Internet Access or texting or emailing every day . People much cooler than i call this a fear of missing out. Of us ing dark those Law Enforcement and Public Safety has a m