By Sadie Gurman, Dustin Volz and Nancy Youssef
Attorney General William Barr called the attack by a Saudi
aviation student that killed three people at a Florida Navy base
last month an act of terrorism, escalating pressure on Apple Inc.
to help unlock a pair of the gunman's iPhones that could provide
more information about his radicalization.
Second Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, a member of the Saudi air force
who was training with the U.S. military, posted anti-American
messages on social media up to two hours before he opened fire in a
classroom at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Dec. 6, Mr. Barr said
Monday. The gunfire lasted about 15 minutes before Lt. Alshamrani
was killed by sheriff's deputies.
During the attack, Lt. Alshamrani made statements critical of
American military actions overseas and fired shots at a picture of
President Trump, officials said. In the weeks beforehand, the
gunman used social media to blame America for crimes against
Muslims, officials said, issuing a warning on the anniversary of
the Sept. 11 attacks that "the countdown has started."
New details about the gunman's views came as the U.S. said it
was expelling 21 Saudi military students from a training program
and immediately sending them back to Saudi Arabia. The probe found
no evidence that the students helped planned the attack, but many
of them had contact with child pornography and almost all of them
possessed jihadist or anti-American material, Mr. Barr said.
None of the students face federal charges, but all were expected
to be returned to their home country by later Monday.
Investigators have found no evidence that Lt. Alshamrani had
co-conspirators in the U.S. or that he was inspired by one specific
terrorist group, FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said. The FBI
interviewed more than 500 of his friends, classmates and other
associates, and analyzed more than 42 terabytes of digital
information, he said.
But Mr. Barr, ramping up a long-running fight between law
enforcement agencies and Silicon Valley over access to encrypted
data, said: "This situation perfectly illustrates why it is
critical that the public be able to get access to digital
evidence." He added that Apple had provided no "substantive
assistance" getting into the two phones, which are locked with
unknown pass codes and encrypted.
Apple, in a statement last week, said it has always worked
cooperatively with law enforcement to help in investigations. "When
the FBI requested information from us relating to this case a month
ago we gave them all of the data in our possession and we will
continue to support them with the data we have available," an Apple
spokesman said.
Apple didn't respond Monday when asked for comment on Mr. Barr's
remarks.
The Justice Department under Mr. Barr has increasingly
highlighted the difficulties investigators face in accessing
encrypted communications for suspects ranging from terrorists to
child predators. Apple and other tech firms say they help
authorities wherever possible, but that creating vulnerabilities in
their encrypted products would jeopardize broader internet security
and make users less safe from cybercriminals.
"It's very important for us to know with whom and about what the
shooter was communicating before he died," Mr. Barr said on Monday.
The public call came a week after the FBI's general counsel sent a
letter to Apple asking for assistance in accessing material on Lt.
Alshamrani's phones. Apple and other companies receive requests for
help frequently from the FBI, but the use of a formal letter was
seen as unusual.
Officials said investigators secured a court order within a day
of the shooting, but waited a month to contact Apple because they
were trying to exhaust other options to attempt to get into the
phones, which the gunman had damaged, firing a shot into one of
them.
"We don't want to get into a world where we have to spend months
and even years exhausting efforts when lives are in the balance,"
Mr. Barr said. "We should be able to get in when we have a warrant
that establishes that criminal activity is under way."
A Justice Department official told reporters Monday that Apple
hadn't yet told the department whether company employees were able
to get into the phones themselves. But senior Justice and FBI
officials told congressional staff on a phone briefing Monday
morning that there was nothing Apple could do to unlock the iPhones
in question, according to two congressional aides familiar with the
call. The officials criticized Apple for not having created a
method for doing so, the aides said.
The press conference was Mr. Barr's latest attempt to apply
pressure on technology companies for widely adopting encryption
standards that law enforcement officials have long complained make
it difficult for them to unlock digital data belonging to a
criminal suspect, even with a warrant.
Mr. Barr's comments could set the stage for a showdown like the
one that took place during the final year of the Obama
administration, when the Justice Department tried to force Apple to
create a software update that would break the privacy protections
of the iPhone to gain access to a phone linked to a dead gunman
responsible for a 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif.
Apple refused to comply and the FBI found a third party that was
able to unlock the device; the conflict was largely viewed as a
publicity win for the iPhone maker.
The government suffered another setback in 2018, when the FBI
disclosed it had accidentally inflated public statistics about the
number of encrypted devices investigators were unable to break
open. A new estimate has never been provided.
Because U.S. and Saudi officials missed signs of Lt.
Alshamrani's possible extremist views, the shooting drew attention
to screening procedures and security concerns surrounding the more
than 5,000 international military service members, including
approximately 850 Saudis, who come to the U.S. each year for
training. Military students who train in the U.S. are chosen by
their home countries.
The Defense Department is expected to announce findings of a
Pentagon review of its procedures as soon as this week. Among the
conclusions, according to defense officials, is that U.S. officials
now will examine the social-media history of training candidates as
part of the review process.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday that he already has
ordered more stringent screening.
The shooting happened during a period of elevated tension
between Washington and Riyadh, but Mr. Barr said the royal
government had been cooperative in the investigation and assured
him Saudi officials would review the students' cases under their
military justice and criminal code.
While Mr. Barr has repeatedly lamented the phone technology
issue in speeches before, this was the first time he prominently
linked it to an individual case. But Mr. Barr notably declined to
say whether the Justice Department is considering seeking a court
order to compel Apple to help authorities unlock the devices linked
to the Pensacola shooter, which are an iPhone 7 and an iPhone 5.
Former officials have said leadership at both the Justice
Department and FBI appear reticent to descend into another
drawn-out legal dispute.
Similarly, there has been little appetite in Congress to try to
legislate the "Going Dark" issue in a manner that would force
companies to build weaknesses into their products.
Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and Dustin Volz at
dustin.volz@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 13, 2020 18:56 ET (23:56 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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