Report: FBI slow in trying to unlock shooter’s phone
WASHINGTON – The FBI did not immediately enlist all of the bureau’s internal expertise in an attempt to access the locked cellphone of San Bernardino, Calif., gunman Syed Farook after the shooting that left 14 dead in 2015, an internal Justice Department review concluded.
The effort to crack Farook’s iPhone prompted the FBI to seek a court order to force phonemaker Apple to help the investigation. The legal challenge was an aggressive public attempt by law enforcement to overcome encryption that has blocked investigators from accessing thousands of cellphones linked to criminal cases. The FBI dropped the challenge in 2016 after finding an outside contractor to unlock Farook’s device.
In a review of the matter, the Justice Department’s inspector general found that the chief of the bureau’s Remote Operations Unit (ROU), responsible for exploiting cellphone data, was not immediately directed to assist in the San Bernardino case.
“We learned that, unbeknownst to anyone in the FBI, the ROU chief had only just begun the process of looking for a possible solution to the problem on the eve of the application for a court order being filed — a filing predicated in part on the notion that technical assistance from Apple was necessary to search the contents of the device,” the inspector general concluded.
Interviews with supervisors in the bureau’s Operational Technology Division “suggested that they were not on the same page regarding the search for a technical solution to access the iPhone data,” the report found.
The miscommunication “resulted in a delay” in obtaining the necessary internal assistance and the help from an undisclosed contractor to access the phone.
Although the inspector general cited the FBI for internal miscommunication, the review found no evidence that the bureau provided inaccurate information to Congress when outlining its efforts.
In a statement responding to the inspector general’s findings, the FBI said it was “important to take steps to improve communication and coordination through a reorganization within the Operational Technology Division.”
Federal authorities’ lack of access to encrypted data remains a major concern. In a speech this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray said law enforcement is “increasingly unable to access that evidence, despite lawful authority to do so.” In 2017, Wray said, authorities were unable to open 7,775 devices.
“Each one of those nearly 7,800 devices is tied to a specific subject, a specific defendant, a specific victim, a specific threat,” Wray said. “We’re not interested in the millions of devices used by everyday citizens. We’re only interested in those devices that have been used to plan or execute criminal or terrorist activities,” the director said.