Encrypted social networking tools are hindering the FBI’s ability to track terrorists and recruiters who are appealing to young people in the U.S., an FBI official told lawmakers.

Congress must pass a new wiretap law that requires social media websites and operators of other Internet communication tools to share customers’ communications with law enforcement agencies the same way that telecom carriers do, Michael Steinbach, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said Wednesday.

Congress should use the existing telecom wiretap law Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) as a model for new rules focused on Internet-based communications, Steinbach told the U.S. House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee. His comments build upon the FBI’s call in recent months to expand CALEA to Internet communications tools. Agency Director James Comey first called for a CALEA rewrite to cover encrypted mobile phone data last October.

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