Lynch said Tuesday in San Francisco. They are calling on tech companies to provide investigators with guaranteed access to secure data.
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The Justice Department, she says, owes “it to victims and to the public whose safety we must protect to ensure we have done everything under the law to fully investigate terrorist attacks and criminal activity on American soil”.
Lynch confirmed the talks in an interview Monday with Fox News.
“That’s how we spur new ideas, forge better solutions, and find the way forward”.
Lynch said on “Special Report with Bret Baier” that the investigation is being handled by the agency’s “career independent lawyers” and that they will “review the facts and the evidence and make a determination in due course”.
Asked how the dispute with the iPhone and iPad maker could be resolved, Lynch said They could do whats been asked by them.
“One question would be what is the intersection between free speech and commercial speech when talking about code, which are fascinating issues, but are not the issues that drive this case, and frankly they aren’t the issues that will drive how law enforcement works with the tech industry to resolve all these issues because we are relying on time-tested values of law and our obligation to protect the American people”, she said.
Apple has appealed a judge’s order to require the company to assist the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the San Bernardino case, citing First Amendment and other constitutional limitations on the government’s surveillance powers.
The top USA law enforcement official addressed the encryption controversy a day after Apple notched a win in NY, where a US magistrate judge denied the government’s bid to force the company to help it gain access to another iPhone, one that belonged to a drug dealer.
Providing access to the smartphone in the San Bernardino case, “will weaken our safety and security, but it will not affect the terrorists”, Apple’s General Counsel Bruce Sewell told lawmakers in Washington.
Beyond the Apple case, civil liberties groups have qualms about letting foreign governments, including Britain, directly subpoena US companies for customer information stored in the U.S.
Although very beneficial to United States companies, the arrangement would require Congressional action to take effect, said Lynch.
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She said the government went to court to prove to Apple that the company has the legal authority to access the evidence, then Apple chose not to do so.
