Reactions to this on a personal level are certainly justified, but what about the potential for far reaching and long term consequences of this government action? I also find it interesting that some of the most strident conservatives, many of whom were widely critical of the NSA's data collection and monitoring practices, are supporting the government in this case.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/18/us/san-bernardino-shooter-phone-apple-reaction/index.html
Reactions to this on a personal level are certainly justified, but what about the potential for far reaching and long term consequences of this government action?
The slippery slope argument is always weak. If we do a, then x, y, z will follow. No one can predict that. It's a scare tactic.
I still think apple is grandstanding. They've been working w/the FBI all along but balk at this final request. apple has NOT been ordered to do anything in the presence of the FBI. The FBI can send them the phone, apple can remove the 10 tries and you're out feature, and return to FBI to try 40,000 combinations to unlock the phone. No one would know how it was done except apple employees. How is that different from what apple has already done - like giving the FBI all the cloud data from the phone?
I say put Tim Cook and Charlie Daniels in a room and let them sort it out.
In cases of national security (like times of war rules) it just is case closed. Your rights get abridged. Safety comes first; this is idiocy. If the government turns up not security threatening issues they should not be able to use it against citizens
Reactions to this on a personal level are certainly justified, but what about the potential for far reaching and long term consequences of this government action?
The slippery slope argument is always weak. If we do a, then x, y, z will follow. No one can predict that. It's a scare tactic.
I still think apple is grandstanding. They've been working w/the FBI all along but balk at this final request. apple has NOT been ordered to do anything in the presence of the FBI. The FBI can send them the phone, apple can remove the 10 tries and you're out feature, and return to FBI to try 40,000 combinations to unlock the phone. No one would know how it was done except apple employees. How is that different from what apple has already done - like giving the FBI all the cloud data from the phone?
Well said.
I just watched the Director of NYC's counter terrorism unit - I think he was FBI, and another high ranking official appear on Charlie Rose. Those guys made it clear they will use the software in future cases to decode phones. They also said they had tried to work with Apple on a drug dealing case based in Brooklyn for the same "key" to unlock the dealer's phone.
With all the reports of government spying why are conservatives so willing to give up this right of privacy?
Won't the government now be able to use cell phones to track gun sales and gun ownership? Won't this tool in government hands potentially be a threat to the second amendment?
Why can't Apple copy the phones' data to a portable drive, decrypt that drive, copy the decryption to another drive and give that to the Justice Dept., without giving away the decryption key?
GREAT ANSWER. That would be a great policy. IF and WHEN the Justice Dept. has a clear and present need for the data, Apple could provide it, otherwise no spying allowed!
Once released this genii will never go back in the bottle.
By DEVLIN BARRETT
Updated Feb. 23, 2016 12:39 p.m. ET
The Justice Department is pursuing court orders to make Apple Inc. help investigators extract data from iPhones in about a dozen undisclosed cases around the country, in disputes similar to the current battle over a terrorist’s locked phone, according to a newly-unsealed court document.
The other phones are evidence in cases where prosecutors have sought, as in the San Bernardino, Calif., terror case, to use an 18th-century law called the All Writs Act to compel the company to help them bypass the passcode security feature of phones that may hold evidence, according to a letter from Apple which was unsealed in Brooklyn federal court Tuesday.
The letter, written last week from an Apple lawyer to a federal judge, lists the locations of those phone cases: Four in Illinois, three in New York, two in California, two in Ohio, and one in Massachusetts.
The letter doesn't describe the specific types of criminal investigations related to those phones, but people familiar with them said they don't involve terrorism cases. The 12 cases remain in a kind of limbo amid the bigger, more confrontational legal duel between the government and the company over an iPhone seized in the terror case in California, these people said.
Law enforcement leaders, however, may cite the existence of the other cases as evidence that the encryption of personal devices has become a serious problem for criminal investigators in a variety of cases and settings. Privacy advocates are likely to seize on the cases’ existence as proof the government aims to go far beyond what prosecutors have called the limited scope of the current public court fight over a locked iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
In the San Bernardino case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to force Apple to help it beat the passcode system on a work phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook who, along with his wife, carried out a terror attack on his co-workers on Dec. 2 that killed 14 and injured 22. A judge has granted the Justice Department’s request for a court order directing Apple to help the FBI, and Apple is fighting the order.
Separately, federal prosecutors in New York are sparring with Apple over an iPhone seized in a drug investigation there. In that case, prosecutors filed a letter with U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein late Monday that indicates there are other cases in which the government has obtained similar court orders, but the letter doesn’t provide further detail.
“In most of the cases, rather than challenge the orders in court, Apple simply deferred complying with them, without seeking appropriate judicial relief,’’ the prosecutors wrote.
Apple argues that helping the FBI the way the bureau wants would endanger the privacy of its customers. “Forcing Apple to extract data in this case, absent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers,’’ the company has argued in court papers in the New York case.In that case, prosecutors have criticized Apple for resisting their demands, saying the company for years complied with such orders until late last year, when Apple began asserting it should not be forced to provide such assistance. Prosecutors have been particularly critical of Apple’s contention that to help bypass the passcode feature would “tarnish the Apple brand.’’
The judge in the New York case has asked whether it was legal for the government to force Apple to extract data from a locked phone—an indication to some legal experts that he is considering rejecting the government’s rationale.
The dozen or so cases are also distinct from San Bernardino in that many of them involve phones using an older Apple operating system, which has fewer security barriers to surmount, these people said.
But they are similar in the sense that the government is trying to force Apple through the courts to help investigators extract data from otherwise locked iPhones, these people said.
As the fight over the San Bernardino phone became public last week, federal prosecutors and the FBI said they are not seeking to set a precedent in the case, but to get the company to help them open a single phone that may hold crucial evidence to help explain the most deadly terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.In a filing last week in the San Bernardino case, federal prosecutors argued the order they have obtained “is tailored for and limited to this particular phone. And the order will facilitate only the FBI’s efforts to search the phone...Nor is compliance with the order a threat to other users of Apple products.’’
The same filing also argued that what is at stake in the case is permission for the government “to search one telephone of an individual suspected of being involved in a terrorist attack.’’
Apple has directly challenged those claims.“The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true,’’ Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote last week in a letter to customers. “Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices...The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements.’’
Write to Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com
Copyright 2014 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
I've become convinced that this whole thing is much more about the FBI wanting to get a precedent setting court decision than than it is about getting the data off the San Bernadino shooter's phone. If all they wanted was the data, between them and the tech gurus at the NSA they would have had it already.
Former Counter Terrorism Director Richard Clarke spoke on NPR this morning with David Greene and made a very strong case for Apple and strongly believes the FBI bungled this case from day one. He also strongly believes the FBI is absolutely trying to set a legal precedence and pointed out that the NSA probably could have gotten the information if the FBI would have simply requested them to do so.....It seems many in the anti-terrorism world support Apple. Here's a link to the short interview:
