Protesters worldwide plan to blast the FBI for trying to break into a terror suspect’s iPhone, and the general public looks like it’s mostly on Apple’s side in this fight.

Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s director says everyone should essentially chill out.

“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,” said James Comey in a letter released Sunday.

“We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the land.”

His letter also calls for more discussion about balancing privacy and safety: “I hope folks will take a deep breath and stop saying the world is ending, but instead use that breath to talk to each other.”

Comey’s comments come as the controversy continues around Apple’s AAPL, -3.17% refusal to comply with a court order to provide a backdoor into the iPhone used by San Bernardino, Calif., shooting suspect Syed Rizwan Farook.

Read:Apple versus the FBI: A complete guide

Protesters are expected to gather Tuesday in more than 30 cities around the globe, including in Washington, D.C. — outside the FBI’s headquarters. A MarketWatch poll has found readers mostly in favor of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s defiant move, and newspaper editorials typically agree with Apple.

But the FBI’s top cop maintains that people should stop making such a big deal out of all this.

“The San Bernardino litigation isn’t about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message. It is about the victims and justice,” Comey wrote in the letter. He argued the legal issue is “actually quite narrow,” and the FBI’s request is limited and its “value increasingly obsolete because the technology continues to evolve.”

Vote:Should Apple comply with the order to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone?

His letter includes an appeal for a national conversation about “how to both embrace the technology we love and get the safety we need.” Comey, who became the FBI’s director in 2013, said there is “a serious tension between two values we all treasure — privacy and safety.”

“That tension should not be resolved by corporations that sell stuff for a living. It also should not be resolved by the FBI, which investigates for a living,” wrote Comey, whose prior gigs include serving as deputy attorney general and working as general counsel for defense giant Lockheed Martin LMT, -0.20% and Ray Dalio’s hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates.

“It should be resolved by the American people deciding how we want to govern ourselves in a world we have never seen before. We shouldn’t drift to a place — or be pushed to a place by the loudest voices,” Comey said.