FBI head: Ability to break encryption is “urgent public safety issue”

FBI Director Christopher Wray says law enforcement's difficulty in accessing data from a criminal suspect's devices is an “urgent public safety issue,” Reuters reports. In the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, law enforcement failed to access approximately 7,800 devices’ data despite having legal authority to do so.

Why it matters: This pits law enforcement against privacy and security advocates in a debate that has come up time and time again, including in the aftermath of violent attacks like the Texas church shooting. The Justice Department and Apple have battled over this issue before.