FBI Director Wishes to ‘Talk Data Encryption’ with Apple and Google ‘Before Something Terrible Happens’

Hot off the heels of perhaps one of the most highly-publicized political scandal fallouts in modern American History, FBI Director James Comey appears ready, willing, and able to get his mind off of all the recent drama — and launch headlong back into the Federal agency’s previous debate about smartphone data encryption.

Comey, while speaking before purveyors at the International Cybersecurity Conference last week in New York City, indicated, with a sense of dire urgency in his voice, that he wants to look into re-launching the previous cybersecurity debate with American tech-companies — and he wants to do it, in his own words, “before ‘something terrible happens’ and alters the course of the discussion.”

He also cautioned, however, that any discussions will need to be scheduled once the inauguration of a new U.S. President in January, 2017 takes place.

“At some point encryption is going to figure into a major event in this country, and we’ve got to have this conversation before that happens, because after that, the time for thoughtful reflection will be significantly reduced,” according to Comey.

The FBI Director also emphasized how, personally, he would’ve much rather conducted these data encryption discussions behind closed doors with Apple and Google however, the former went ahead and opted to pursue litigation instead of “talking it out” — although Comey, for what it’s worth, appeared to acknowledge why Apple did that — primarily given the contentious, back-and-forth nature of the debate, coupled also with FBI demands, Apple’s status quo to maintain user privacy, and so on, and so forth.

Expressing almost in a tone of reconciliation towards Apple for the aforementioned hullabaloo, Comey added: “Nobody has the high ground. Nobody is the Devil. In this conversation, we all share the same values.”

With so many government-related conspiracies, news headlines, and other media floating around lately, perhaps you might have forgotten about the whole ‘encryption debate’ of yesteryear — and trust us, we don’t blame you — but here’s a little refresher for you.

The “whole device data encryption” debate, though long in the tooth of many high-ranking security and law enforcement officials, officially took center stage last year when the San Bernardino, California shooting suspect, Syed Rizwan Farook, was discovered to be in possession of an iPhone 5c belonging to the County of San Bernardino — for whom Farook was an employee prior to the shooting.

From there, you might remember, the iPhone 5c landed in the hands of the FBI. At that time, Apple was summoned into court to help officials with the DoJ access any “crucial digital evidence” that might have been stored on the device. After Apple denied, however, thereby sending the case back to a lower court, the FBI was ironically enough able to find an alternative way into the iPhone 5c — for which the Federal agency paid a whopping $1.34 million.

Oh yeah, and, who could forget, right? — once the FBI was actually able to make its way past iOS security, as fate would have it, there wasn’t even anything of value to the investigation on the handset in the first place!

What do you think about James Comey wanting to “jump back into the encryption debate before ‘something terrible happens’”? Let us know in the comments below!