AG Barr asks Facebook to hold off encryption plans for messaging services: report

U.S. Attorney General William Barr wants Facebook Inc. to delay plans to include encryption on its messaging services until it determines a way to provide government access for investigative purposes. "Companies cannot operate with impunity where lives and the safety of our children is at stake, and if Mr. [Mark] Zuckerberg really has a credible plan to protect Facebook's more than two billion users it's time he let us know what it is," Barr said in an open letter to be published Friday, according to a Wall Street Journal report. "We strongly oppose government attempts to build back doors because they would undermine the privacy and security of people everywhere," a Facebook spokesman said Thursday.

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