FBI’s Top Lawyer Urges Congressional Action on Encryption

James Baker, the top lawyer at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, recommended that Congress take a more active role in legislating on US law enforcement’s limited access to encrypted data tied to a criminal investigation. “We don’t want this debate driven by some kind of catastrophe down the road,” Baker said. Baker, the FBI’s general counsel, appeared at an event to discuss a new encryption report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The American people, through their elected representatives, have to make a value determination” regarding encryption, he said. “The world is moving forward, and doing nothing is an action, and will result in a particular state of affairs.” “I’m not sure that a commission is going to be able to come up with a kind of granular solution, [a] highly technical solution, promptly, that we can put in place to deal with this,” Baker said.