Ride the Lightning

US Government Wants Facebook to Break Encryption in its Messenger App

August 21, 2018

Reuters reported on August 17^th that he U.S. government is trying to force Facebook to break the encryption in its popular Messenger app so law enforcement may listen to a suspect's voice conversations in a criminal probe. This was according to three people briefed on the case, resurrecting the issue of whether companies can be compelled to alter their products to enable surveillance.

The previously unreported case in a federal court in California is under seal, so no filings are publicly available, but the three people told Reuters that Facebook is contesting the U.S. Department of Justice's demand.

The judge in the Messenger case heard arguments last Tuesday on a government motion to hold Facebook in contempt of court for refusing to carry out the surveillance request, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Facebook and the Department of Justice declined to comment.

The Messenger issue arose in Fresno, California, reportedly as part of an investigation of the MS-13 gang.

If the government prevails in the Facebook Messenger case, it could make similar arguments to force companies to rewrite other popular encrypted services such as Signal and Facebook's billion-user WhatsApp, which include both voice and text functions, some legal experts said.

Unlike the infamous San Bernardino case pitting Apple against the US government, where the FBI wanted to crack one iPhone in its possession, prosecutors are seeking a wiretap of ongoing voice conversations by one person on Facebook Messenger.

Facebook is arguing in court that Messenger voice calls are encrypted end-to-end, meaning that only the two parties have access to the conversation.

Ordinary Facebook text messages, Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOGL.O) Gmail, and other services are decrypted by the service providers during transit for targeted advertising or other reasons, making them available for court-ordered interception.

End-to-end encrypted communications, by contrast, go directly from one user to another user without revealing anything intelligible to providers. Facebook says it can only comply with the government's request if it rewrites the code relied upon by all its users to remove encryption or else hacks the government's current target, according to the sources.

Another one to watch carefully . . .

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