It would surprise no one to learn that the government is not exactly happy with how advanced and airtight mobile encryption technology is becoming. Both Apple and Google have vowed to take steps forward with more powerful encryption on future phones and devices. Quite simply, customers these days want more secure communications, especially after Edward Snowden leaked documents last year that revealed the NSA’s spying programs to the public.

What is surprising is that FBI Director James Comey has actually had the gall to stand up and tell companies like Apple and Google to slow down with mobile encryption, lest technological advancements leave the government with no way to intercept communications. According to a report from ZDNet, Comey recently spoke out against mobile encryption at an event held in Washington D.C., and had some very choice words for the privacy-minded technology.

“If the challenges of real-time interception threaten to leave us in the dark, encryption threatens to lead all of us to a very dark place,” Comey said.

In other words, Comey is upset because the FBI no longer has the technology to open and access the encrypted mobile communications of United States citizens. Apple and Google are both at work on a new mode of encryption that will give full privacy to users. Even the companies themselves will not be able to decrypt user data and communication, even if the FBI or the NSA comes knocking with a warrant to access a so-called criminal’s smartphone.

Comey says that this kind of super encryption will put law enforcement and national security agencies at a severe disadvantage for catching criminals.

“I suggest to you that homicide cases could be stalled, suspects walked free, child exploitation not discovered and prosecuted,” the FBI chief said. “Law enforcement needs to be able to access communications in a lawful way in order to bring people to justice.”

Previously, the “lawful” way for the government to access communications has been provided by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. or CALEA. But CALEA is 20 years old and is out of date. Most modern mobile communications forms are not even covered by the law.

Comey, of course, wants an update for the law, and a CALEA II has been discussed for awhile now.However, with pro-privacy groups already in loud protest over the prospect of the law, and with the memory of the NSA’s spying programs fresh in the minds of U.S. citizens everywhere, it is likely that CALEA II would have a very hard time becoming law. As a result, Comey is left to plead with Apple and Google to either drop mobile encryption altogether or to install a backdoor into their encryption systems so that the government can get in when it wants to.