Shooting at military base in Florida was an act of terrorism,
U.S. attorney general says
By Sadie Gurman, Dustin Volz and Nancy Youssef
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (January 14, 2020).
Attorney General William Barr called the December attack by a
Saudi aviation student that killed three people at a Florida Navy
base 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.
Mr. Barr called on Apple to find a way to crack the encrypted
phones in a high-profile request that ramped up a long-simmering
fight between tech firms and the government over how to best
balance digital security with the imperatives of criminal
investigations.
Second Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, a member of the Saudi air force
who was training with the U.S. military, posted anti-U.S. messages
on social media about 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 responding sheriff's deputies.
During the attack, Lt. Alshamrani made statements critical of
U.S. 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 the U.S. for crimes against
Muslims, officials said, issuing a warning on the anniversary of
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that "the countdown has started."
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, Federal Bureau of Investigation 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 Justice Department officials said only a look at data and
communications on the gunman's phones could help them say for
certain whether he discussed his plans with others.
Mr. Barr, stepping 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 said 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 late Monday, said it always worked
cooperatively with law enforcement to help in investigations and
that it rejected Mr. Barr's characterization that it hadn't
provided substantial assistance.
"Our responses to their many requests since the attack have been
timely, thorough and are ongoing," an Apple spokesman said. In
response to several legal requests, the company quickly provided a
"wide variety of information" when first contacted by law
enforcement last month, "including iCloud backups, account
information and transactional data for multiple accounts," the
spokesman said.
Only last week did the FBI notify Apple that more assistance was
required and alerted the company of a second phone investigators
couldn't access, the spokesman said, adding that "early outreach is
critical to accessing information and finding additional
options."
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 have said 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.
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 plan the attack, but many of
them had contact with child pornography and almost all of them
possessed jihadist or anti-U.S. 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.
The attorney general's 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.
A Justice Department official said 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 news 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.
"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."
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 14, 2020 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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