Back in mid-May of last year, FBI Director James Comey commented on the fight against smartphone encryption: "How can we optimize the privacy, security features of their devices and allow court orders to be complied with. We're having some good conversations — I don't know where they're going to end up, frankly. I could imagine a world that ends up with legislation saying that if you're going to make devices in the US you figure out how to comply with court orders." Now that same fight is being taken up by the new FBI Director, Christopher Wray.

A new Reuters report covers statements made yesterday by FBI Director Christopher Wray at a cyber security conference: "The inability of law enforcement authorities to access data from electronic devices due to powerful encryption is an 'urgent public safety issue.' FBI Director Christopher Wray seeks to renew a contentious debate over privacy and security.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was unable to access data from nearly 7,800 devices in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 with technical tools despite possessing proper legal authority to pry them open, a growing figure that impacts every area of the agency's work, Wray said during a speech at a cyber security conference in New York.

The FBI has been unable to access data in more than half of the devices that it tried to unlock due to encryption, Wray added.

'This is an urgent public safety issue,' Wray added, while saying that a solution is 'not so clear cut.'

"We face an enormous and increasing number of cases that rely heavily, if not exclusively, on electronic evidence," Wray told an audience of FBI agents, international law enforcement representatives and private sector cyber professionals. A solution requires "significant innovation," Wray said, "but I just do not buy the claim that it is impossible."

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in October chastised technology companies for building strongly encrypted products, suggesting Silicon Valley is more willing to comply with foreign government demands for data than those made by their home country.

Currently, U.S. lawmakers have expressed little interest in pursuing legislation to require companies to create products whose contents are accessible to authorities who obtain a warrant." Yet at some point this will come to a head, forcing lawmakers to make an unpopular descision. Until then, technology companies, and especially Apple, have won the public debate hands down.

In February 2016, Apple posted "A Message to our Customers" wherein Apple's Tim Cook stated that "The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers." The message covered the need for encryption, the San Bernardino terrorist case, the threat to data security and the government's dangerous precedent.

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