CRS INSIGHT
Paris Attacks and "Going Dark": Intelligence-Related
Issues to Consider
November 19, 2015 (IN10400)
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Intelligence and National Security
Anne Daugherty Miles
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Anne Daugherty Miles, Analyst in Intelligence and National Security Policy (amiles@crs.loc.gov, 7-7739)
Authorities are tracking numerous individuals involved in the deadly assault in Paris on November 13, 2015. According
to one report, "a rogues' gallery of homegrown terrorists with links to Islamist groups has become large enough — and
is acting stealthily enough — to make tracking them increasingly difficult for the region's intelligence agencies." (See
CRS Insight IN10209, European Security, Islamist Terrorism, and Returning Fighters, by Kristin Archick and Paul
Belkin.)
While CRS has found no specific evidence of encrypted communications linked to the Paris attacks cited in news
reports, some are using the Paris attacks to highlight the difficulties of collecting intelligence when communications
data can be encrypted—an issue called "going dark." On November 16, 2015, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Director John Brennan stated:
[O]peratives and terrorist networks ... have gone to school on what it is that they need to do in order to keep their
activities concealed from the authorities.... [T]here are a lot of technological capabilities that are available right now
that make it exceptionally difficult, both technically as well as legally, for intelligence and security services to have the
insight they need to uncover it.
"Going Dark"
Technology changes have impacted law enforcement capabilities to access (1) communications in transit between
devices and (2) stored data within devices. Companies such as Apple and Google have announced that they cannot
unlock their devices for anyone under any circumstances, not even for law enforcement (because they do not maintain a
key to decrypt messages sent between their devices.)
Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes explains the encryption problem this way:
It's about data at rest on devices, data that is now being encrypted in a fashion that can't easily be cracked when those
