Last week, the FBI got a judge to order Apple to create software that would allow them to break into San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook’s work-issued iPhone. The arguments between the two sides are both compelling ones, and now FBI Director James Comey is defending the request.

In a statement posted on the Lawfare blog, Comey sought to defend the FBI demand for access to the iPhone as well as counter arguments from Apple Inc. that the request risks threatening the digital privacy of Apple customers all over the world.

“We simply want the chance, with a search warrant, to try to guess the terrorist’s passcode without the phone essentially self-destructing and without it taking a decade to guess correctly. That’s it,” Comey wrote in a four-paragraph statement. “We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the land.”

The iPhone used by Syed Farook, who along with his wife killed 14 people in the December 2 rampage, may or may not hold clues to finding more terrorists, Comey wrote.

“But,” he added “we can’t look the survivors in the eye, or ourselves in the mirror, if we don’t follow this lead.”