Higher Loyalty, by James Comey: on Technology

Barack Obama: Government should decide privacy limits, not companies

He dove into the issue in 2016, ordering unprecedented scrutiny of the clash between privacy and security. He said that if we were headed to a place where wide swaths of American life would be judge proof, that wasn't a decision a company should make: only the people should make such a decision.

Unfortunately, President Obama ran out of time. It was possible to build secure mobile devices and still permit judges to access in appropriate cases, he left office without deciding what to do next, including whether to seek legislation or regulation of some kind.

Donald Trump: Be more aggressive against leakers of classified information

But I also told him that if we could make a case--if we could nail a leaker of classified information to the wall--it would serve as an important deterrence signal. Although I had made no reference about going after members of the media, the president said something about how we once put reporters in jail and made them talk.

This was a reference to the Scooter Libby investigation, when N.Y. Times reporter Judith Miller spent nearly three months in jail in 2005 in contempt of court for refusing to comply with a court order for information about her conversations with Libby. He then urged me to talk to attorney general Sessions about ways to be more aggressive.