FBI Director Christopher Wray says tech companies should let law enforcement decrypt messages — but he argued the exact opposite in court in 2015, new filings show

• As FBI director, Christopher Wray has called on tech companies to make it easier for law enforcement to crack into encrypted messages.
• The FBI has spent nearly a decade trying to get Facebook and Apple, which use end-to-end encryption, to build "back doors" that would let law enforcement with a warrant decrypt users' messages. The companies have refused.
• But before he joined the FBI, Wray's law firm defended WhatsApp against a 2015 lawsuit brought by the Justice Department. Wray argued in favor of strong end-to-end encryption at the time.
• Details of the sealed 2015 lawsuit surfaced Wednesday as part of an ongoing legal battle between WhatsApp and Israeli spyware firm NSO Group.
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For nearly a decade, the federal government has been trying to make tech companies like Apple and Facebook build "back doors" into their messaging apps that would let law enforcement access people's encrypted messages.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has been a vocal critic of end-to-end encryption in recent years, testifying before the House of Representatives in February that end-to-end encryption in messaging apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger is a "dream come true for predators and child pornographers."

But new court filings show that in 2015, before he joined the FBI, Wray's private law firm defended WhatsApp against a Justice Department lawsuit that aimed to weaken the messaging app's encryption. Wray argued in favor of strong end-to-end encryption at the time.

The new filings became public Wednesday night as part of an ongoing legal battle between Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Israeli spyware firm NSO Group. The law firm Wray previously worked for, King & Spalding, represents NSO Group in the current lawsuit, and Facebook is arguing that the firm has a conflict of interest because it defended WhatsApp in the 2015 suit.

An FBI spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI said in a statement to The New York Times that Wray "cannot comment on the scope of his prior representation of WhatsApp."

"Like all other lawyers, his duty of loyalty was to his client, and he did not put his personal views ahead of his clients' interests or allow them to affect the legal work he did for clients. Today, as director of the FBI, his duty is to act in the best interests of the American people," the FBI statement said.

Tech companies have resisted the federal government's pressure to weaken encryption on messaging apps. Apple and Facebook have both argued that users' privacy is at stake, and that building "back doors" would also make it easier for hackers to break into people's messages.

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