By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The FBI conceded Tuesday that it made a mistake when trying to capture data from an iPhone belonging to one of the an Bernardino shooters.
FBI Director James Comey said the error in the early stages of the investigation made it impossible to get information from the phone, the New York Times reports.
“There was a mistake made in the 24 hours after the attack,” James B. Comey Jr., the director of the F.B.I., told lawmakers at a hearing on the government’s attempt to force Apple to help “unlock” the iPhone.
The FBI tried to reset the iCloud password, an error in judgment that locked investigators out.
The Times wrote that members of the House Judiciary Committee “seemed torn over where to draw the line” between consumer privacy and national security.
“The big question for our country is how much privacy are we going to give up in the name of security,” Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, told Mr. Comey. “And there’s no easy answer to that.”
Other lawmakers criticized Apple for refusing to help and making it difficult to open the phone.
“We’re going to create evidence-free zones?” asked Representative Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican who once served as a federal prosecutor. “Am I missing something?”
“How the hell you can’t access a phone, I just find baffling,” he said.
