The FBI didn‘t encrypt these transmissions because it probably didn‘t seem worth the effort… at least not at the time. The FBI could have encrypted the transmissions and delivered the decrypted results to defendants for them to examine. I‘m sure it wishes it had done this, now that it‘s being challenged in court.

This is one more example of the FBI‘s overconfidence getting in the way of its better judgment. These were supposed to be open-and-shut child porn prosecutions — a repeat of its mostly under-the-radar use of the same tools and tactics in 2012. But they aren‘t. They‘re being challenged and the FBI is going from courtroom to courtroom, putting out fires. And all that scrambling is leading to half-assed explanations like this, which raises serious questions about the FBI‘s investigative „techniques.