The Encryption Tightrope: Balancing Americans' Security and Privacy

House Judiciary Committee
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
1:00 pm
http://judiciary.house.gov/index.cfm/2016/3/the-encryption-tightrope-bal...

As encryption has increasingly become much more widespread among consumers, there is an ongoing national debate about the positive and negative implications it poses for consumers’ security and privacy. Encryption is used to strengthen consumers’ privacy but it also has presented new challenges for law enforcement seeking to obtain information during the course of its criminal investigations. For example, following the December 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, investigators recovered a cell phone belonging to one of the terrorists responsible for the attack. After the FBI was unable to unlock the phone and recover its contents, a federal judge recently ordered Apple to provide “reasonable technical assistance to assist law enforcement agents in obtaining access to the data” on the device.

Witness Panel 1
The Honorable James B. Comey
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation

Witness Panel 2
Mr. Bruce Sewell
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Apple, Inc.

Ms. Susan Landau
Professor
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Mr. Cyrus R. Vance Jr.
District Attorney
New York County