Hi, you're new here. In the USA when someone in government says something that you agree with, it may because they are sincere, or it may be because its what you want to hear. Politicians, and humans in political roles, may lie. Lying is when they say something that isn't true. They may do this for many reasons. A common reason is when they want an outcome X, and they say to you that they don't want outcome X. "Oh thank goodness! They don't want outcome X either! I can go about my business." They might say they "don't want a backdoor". Technically, this isn't even a lie. Comey does not intend to put a backdoor on your phone. Your phone is not a house. Clearly it cannot have a door. But Comey very much wants to be able to decrypt the information on your phone and says so specifically and at great length. A technical person would call this "a backdoor". It is clearly not a backdoor, and no form of door will be installed on your phone. When Comey says "we dont want access to devices built in in someway", what he means is that of course your phone wont be built with the access mechanism. Your phone is an inert piece metal, plastic and silicon etc. What he wants is that when your phone is first connected to electrical power, at the factory, then it will have the access software installed. Not built in, but installed at the factory.

If you are curious about how you might incorporate what people say into your reasoning about reality and outcomes, this is a good book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Know-What-Isnt-Fallibility/dp/002...

Thanks for being a condescending asshole.

|How can we optimize the privacy, security features of their devices and allow court orders to be complied with.

You can't; this is an either or situation. There is literally no system that could be put in place that wouldn't be exploited by people who were not the intended users.

He says he doesn't want a backdoor and then spends all his time asking for one.

He is playing the word game, what a technical person might call a "backdoor" he will call a "front-door" or something else, so there's technically not a "backdoor" and he technically didn't lie, even if he wants what many of us geeks would indeed call a "backdoor". It's sort of how the NSA redefines the dictionary meaning of common sense words to mean something else, (for example something like: "surveillance" means breaking into someone's home to plant a bug in there, so technically almost no one is under that definition of "surveillance", even if capturing our emails, hacking webcams etc. would be considered surveillance as well, but since no one broke in to plant a physical bug, that's not "surveillance" - it's just a words game).

> He is playing the word game

That's the worst thing about Comey. He is totally comfortable and unabashed about going in front of the American people and playing a word game.

I thought it was interesting that he talked about breaking into other people's devices while specifying how they would harden their own systems. "We don't want you looking at our stuff, but your stuff is fair game."

No, he wants a "front-door", but it amounts to the same.