“We have no idea what he said because those messages were encrypted,” Comey said. “And to this day, I can’t tell you what he said with that terrorist 109 times the morning of that attack. That is a big problem. We have to grapple with it.”
The testimony was the first time Comey, a longtime critic of the technologies that he contends are creating a “going dark” problem for law enforcement agencies, had cited a specific example of a terrorist using encrypted communications. He said he would not comment on whether similar technology was involved in the time before the Paris attacks or the shooting rampage in San Bernardino, Calif.