The FBI is accusing Apple and Google of helping ISIS

Man, the FBI has been saying some funny things. Especially in regards to encryption and why it’s “bad” for companies like Apple and Google to implement it in their technology, the FBI makes some wild claims, including that those two companies are helping terrorist organizations such as ISIS when they refuse to build backdoors into their products. Despite claiming just a few years ago that encryption is a necessary security measure, the FBI now claims that we’re all in danger thanks to encryption. 

Apple and Google are helping terrorism by offering users encrypted communications, a senior FBI official has told the House Homeland Security Committee in Congress, and US law enforcement needs to stop them from doing it. Michael Steinbach, assistant director in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, told Congress that ISIS and other terrorist groups are using commercially available encryption technology to mask their activities, leading law enforcement surveillance to “go dark.” As far as the FBI is concerned, private companies must “build technological solutions to prevent encryption above all else,” the Washington Post reports Steinbach as saying. That’s a pretty sharp reverse ferret from the FBI, which four years ago was recommending encryption as a basic security measure. But Steinbach said evildoers are hiding behind US-made technology to mask their actions. Encryption appears to be a big problem for law enforcement, both foreign and domestic. Ever since encrypted communications was offered as an option, and later a default setting, by technology manufacturers, the FBI has been complaining that we are all less safe as a result.