Comey: 'There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America'

Comey: 'There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America'

But, he said, Americans "have a reasonable expectation of privacy"

By Mary Kay Mallonee and Eugene Scott, CNN
Updated 3:31 PM ET, Wed March 8, 2017

(CNN)FBI Director James Comey warned Wednesday that Americans should not have expectations of "absolute privacy," adding that he planned to finish his term leading the FBI.

"There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America; there is no place outside of judicial reach," Comey said at a Boston College conference on cybersecurity. He made the remark as he discussed the rise of encryption since 2013 disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed sensitive US spy practices.

"Even our communications with our spouses, with our clergy members, with our attorneys are not absolutely private in America," Comey added. "In appropriate circumstances, a judge can compel any one of us to testify in court about those very private communications."

But, he also said Americans "have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our homes, in our cars, in our devices.

"It is a vital part of being an American. The government cannot invade our privacy without good reason, reviewable in court," Comey continued.

In the last four months of 2016, the FBI lawfully gained access to 2,800 devices recovered in criminal, terrorism and counterintelligence investigations and the FBI was unable to open 43% of those devices, Comey said.

Americans' desire for privacy and security should never be viewed as incompatible, he said.

"We all value privacy. We all value security. We should never have to sacrifice one for the other," Comey said. "Our founders struck a bargain that is at the center of this amazing country of ours and has been for over two centuries."

Comey's leadership of the FBI has been marked by controversy in the wake of the bureau's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email controversy and President Donald Trump's baseless accusations that President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of phones at Trump Tower.

He did not address the wiretapping claim nor WikiLeaks' recent claim that it obtained internal CIA documents.

Comey did, however, say he plans to finish out his 10-year term.

"You're stuck with me for about another 6 1/2 years, and so I'd love to be invited back again," he said.

CNN's Casey Riddle contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/08/politics/james-comey-privacy-cybersecurity/


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Report: World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China

World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China Published time: 17 Mar, 2019 13:12 ·           A Chinese surgeon has performed the world’s first remote brain surgery using 5G technology, with the patient 3,000km away from the operating doctor. Dr. Ling Zhipei remotely implanted a neurostimulator into his patient’s brain on Saturday, Chinese state-run media  reports . The surgeon manipulated the instruments in the Beijing-based PLAGH hospital from a clinic subsidiary on the southern Hainan island, located 3,000km away. The surgery is said to have lasted three hours and ended successfully. The patient, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is said to be feeling well after the pioneering operation. The doctor used a computer connected to the next-generation 5G network developed by Chinese tech giant Huawei. The new device enabled a near real-time connection, according to Dr. Ling.  “You barely feel that the patient is 3,000 kilometers away,”  he said.
Read more

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car Stealer's Wheel? Seattle police department quotes "Watchmen" movie in a recap of the recent arrest. Tech Culture by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper December 4, 2016 5:00 PM PST It's maybe the most satisfying arrest we can imagine. Seattle police caught an alleged car thief by enlisting the help of car maker BMW to both track and then remotely lock the luckless criminal in the very car he was trying to steal. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, deputy director of communications for the Seattle Police Department, posted a witty summary of the event on the SPD's blog on Wednesday. Turns out if you're inside a stolen car, it's perhaps not the best time to take a nap. "A car thief awoke from a sound slumber Sunday morning (Nov. 27) to find he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW, just as Seattle police officers were bearing down on him," Spangenthal-Lee wrote. The suspect found a ke
Read more

Visualizing The Power Of The World's Supercomputers

Visualizing The Power Of The World's Supercomputers   BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY, JAN 21, 2022 - 04:15 AM   A supercomputer is a machine that is built to handle billions, if not trillions of calculations at once. Each supercomputer is actually made up of many individual computers (known as nodes) that work together in parallel. A common metric for measuring the performance of these machines is  flops , or  floating point operations per second . In this visualization,  Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu uses  November 2021 data from  TOP500  to visualize the computing power of the world’s top five supercomputers. For added context, a number of modern consumer devices were included in the comparison. Ranking by Teraflops Because supercomputers can achieve over one quadrillion flops, and consumer devices are much less powerful, we’ve used  teraflops  as our comparison metric. 1 teraflop = 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) flops. Supercomputer Fugaku  was completed in March 202
Read more