Law officials push for encryption-bypass legislation

NEW YORK — Calling it an issue of victims’ rights, the Manhattan district attorney urged Congress to pass legislation that would require tech companies to give law enforcement a way to access information on encrypted phones and other devices.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office currently has 230 phones involved in cases that it has warrants to search, but can’t access the information inside.

A Senate bill now being drafted would effectively prohibit unbreakable encryption and require companies to help the government access data on a computer or mobile device with a warrant.

Tech companies, civil liberties groups and some members of Congress, have railed against the draft, saying that it would effectively require them to create backdoors into encrypted devices and undermine security for everyone.

FBI Director James Comey said the method used to break that phone works only on an iPhone 5C running version 9 of the Apple operating system.