I believe that Americans should be deeply skeptical of government power. You cannot trust people in power. The founders knew that. That's why they divided power among three branches, to set interest against interest.

I'm in the business where I can't ever say there's no risk associated with someone.

We all love privacy. We all care about public safety. And none of - at least people that I hang around with, none of us want back doors. We don't want access to devices built-in in some way.

It is a little bit difficult to talk about things that do involve classified matters in public. But I think the public needs to know that there are multiple oversight layers, including the FISA Court, congressional oversight, internal oversight within the FBI and intelligence community, that protects Americans from - under - their - their privacy rights while targeting terrorists and people who are trying to kill us.

Half of the devices that we encounter in terrorism cases, in counterintelligence cases, in gang cases, in child pornography cases, cannot be opened with any technique. That is a big problem. And so the shadow continues to fall.

What we want to work with manufacturers on is to figure out how can we accommodate both interests in a sensible way? How can we optimize the privacy, security features of their devices and allow court orders to be complied with?

Sometimes the FBI is assigned to do background checks on people who are coming into government in the executive office of the president. Other times, not. A lot of times there are people who are arriving with clearances that already exist.