Documents Reveal FBI Head Defended Encryption for WhatsApp Before Becoming Fierce Critic

Christopher Wray, the FBI director who has been one of the fiercest critics of encryption under the Trump administration, previously worked as a lawyer for WhatsApp, where he defended the practice, according to new court filings. From a report:

The documents, which were released late on Wednesday night as part of an unrelated matter, show Wray worked for WhatsApp in 2015 while he was an attorney for the Washington law firm of King & Spalding. While there are sparse details about the precise nature of the work, the filings indicate that Wray strongly defended the need for end-to-end encryption in his previous representation of WhatsApp, the popular messaging application owned by Facebook. Wray’s earlier work – which has not previously been public – contradicts his current position on encryption, which protects users’ communications and other data from being read by outsiders. The Trump administration and major technology companies like Facebook have been at odds over the need to offer customers encryption services, with the White House and law enforcement officials arguing the technology represents a security risk by protecting the communication of terrorists and criminals.

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