Democratic debate: Hillary Clinton "pleased" with WH talks with Silicon Valley
Hillary Clinton said she was satisfied with recent White House efforts to recruit Silicon Valley companies in the fight against ISIS, giving positive reviews of the discussions during Sunday's Democratic debate.
"I was very pleased that leaders of President Obama's administration went out to Silicon Valley last week and began exactly this conversation about what we can do, consistent with privacy and security," Clinton said in South Carolina.
The former secretary of state was responding to a question about whether private companies should grant backdoor access to the federal government for encrypted technologies. With recent reports showing groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are using encrypted messaging to coordinate terror attacks, the White House has made a more concerted push to enlist the help of tech leaders.
But NBC debate moderator Andrea Mitchell refuted Clinton's characterization of the meetings.
"Secretary Clinton, you said that the leaders from the intelligence community went to Silicon Valley," Mitchell said. "They were flatly turned down. They got nowhere."
Clinton shot back, "That is not what I've heard. Let me leave it at that."
The Democratic front-runner also proposed fighting the threat of "lone wolf" terror attacks with better "intelligence cooperation" from allies around the world.
Clinton added that the country's "first line of defense" against such attacks "is among Muslim Americans."
"And it is not only shameful, it is dangerous for the kinds of comments you're hearing from the Republican side," she said, referring to the contentious rhetoric of some in the GOP, like Donald Trump, who have supported surveilling and creating databases of Muslim Americans.
"We need to be reaching out and unifying our country against terrorist attacks and lone wolves, and working with Muslim Americans," she added.