That's not "his" stance; it's the stance of pretty much the entire law enforcement community, and a pretty substantial chunk of Americans. We all cheered --- I did too! --- when Apple failed to produce the contents of the San Bernardino iPhone. But people outside our industry do not see this as a good thing, and --- as unpopular as this statement will be in this community --- that's not an unreasonable perspective to have. Reasonable people can disagree about it.
(If you think reasonable people can't disagree about it, you're probably misconstruing the debate. You know this is happening if, for instance, the next rhetorical move you have to make is about how it's impossible to "ban mathematics" or about how "only outlaws will have cryptography".)
I am very unlikely to hold a bias against encryption against someone like James Comey. And I work in cryptography! I disagree with him about it, but that doesn't make him a bad person.
On the other hand, I have a hard time working around him violating what is apparently a very real election norm of the institution he runs. That to me suggests that he's unprincipled, which is the kind of thing I really have a problem with.
I think the theory of those who believe he was trying to do the right thing is that he foresaw a situation where if he didn't act, the result would be roughly equivalent to a much worse violation of said norm - and so he chose to preserve as much of the spirit of the norm as he could at the expense of participating in the violation of the letter.
Whether this theory seems correct, and whether it argues for principled or unprincipled, I suspect will have varying answers depending on who you ask.
(If you think reasonable people can't disagree about it, you're probably misconstruing the debate. You know this is happening if, for instance, the next rhetorical move you have to make is about how it's impossible to "ban mathematics" or about how "only outlaws will have cryptography".)
I am very unlikely to hold a bias against encryption against someone like James Comey. And I work in cryptography! I disagree with him about it, but that doesn't make him a bad person.
On the other hand, I have a hard time working around him violating what is apparently a very real election norm of the institution he runs. That to me suggests that he's unprincipled, which is the kind of thing I really have a problem with.