Apple/FBI fight looks destined to go all the way to the Supreme Court as more background is revealed

[LiberalArkie]

If Tim Cook’s strongly-worded response to the court order instructing it to assist the FBI in breaking into an iPhone left any room for doubt about Apple’s determination to fight the matter all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, that doubt appears to be removed by further background emerging today.

The NY Times reports that Apple plans to press ahead with plans to increase its use of strong encryption.

Mr. Cook has told colleagues that he still stands by the company’s longstanding plans to encrypt everything stored on Apple’s myriad devices, services and in the cloud, where the bulk of data is still stored unencrypted.

“If you place any value on civil liberties, you don’t do what law enforcement is asking,” Mr. Cook has said.

The piece also reveals that Apple had asked the FBI to make its court application under seal – meaning that the legal arguments could be heard in private – but the FBI chose instead to make it a public fight …

Snip

http://9to5mac.com/2016/02/19/applefbi-fight-looks-destined-to-go-all-the-way-to-the-supreme-court-as-more-background-is-revealed/

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. They want it all, every scrap of info about everyone.

And in secret, as much as possible.

[True Earthling]

4. Who is "they"?

[davidn3600]

7. Big Brother

[True Earthling]

9. Yeah - I read 1984 back in high school...

About 50 years ago. That was under a fascist system I believe. We're nowhere close to that IMO.

It's appears to me that a lot of DU'ers are more afraid of gov't than terrorism. Been seeing accusations of fearmongering levied against the anti-terrorism crowd but most of the fearmongering I've noticed is by the anti-gov't, anti-LE crowd... beware of the scary, evil government/LE who will be combing through your personal info if Apple gives the FBI what they want.

[nichomachus]

11. Yeah, we're not close

we actually passed that point a long time ago -- If you don't realize that, then I pity you.

[True Earthling]

15. 1984 was fiction

Do you really believe you're currently being spied on to keep you in line with gov't policies?

[Downwinder]

17. I have been told by local police that they

have a file on everyone in town.

During the anti-nuke protests the Texas Rangers went to peoples employer's to try to get them fired.

[True Earthling]

19. How big is that town? I think I would move - lol.

That doesn't sound like 1984 with a one party system and where surveillance and propaganda were a daily and relentless occurrence.

[Downwinder]

20. You don't think propaganda is a daily and relentless occurrence?

Vern's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea was fiction. Does that mean that we don't have submarines?

[True Earthling]

22. Didn't say we don't have surveillance..or propaganda

Just not on the scale or with the same purpose as in 1984. I don't currently see a lot of propaganda by the gov't where they are trying to shape our opinions. There was a gov't campaign in the Bush years to sell us on the Iraq war.. not much since. I do see gov't sponsored ads now and then to promote tolerance and racial equality. You could say that's propaganda but propaganda for a good purpose.

[Downwinder]

23. Slippery slope.

Ever watch FOX News or read NYT? Lots of cases where the Government controls the news. That's propaganda.

[True Earthling]

25. Don't watch FOX... but NYT???

Please enlighten me how gov't controls the news. Do they have NYT writers on the payroll? Does the gov't write the scripts for FOX then force them to broadcast they viewpoints?

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Project Mockinkbird

CIA op that came out during the 1976 Church hearings. If you think they stopped, there is a bridge for sale down by the port

[True Earthling]

30. Where is that bridge and how much?

That was back in the 50's. Do you have any evidence it's still operating today?

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. You are too trusting of your government

I am not.

They are still at it.

Remember Judith Miller? That is evidence of this shit continuing. It will take another hearing to discover the present version

Of course, you will tell me the cops do not spy on demonstrations, never mind spider devices, or have files on people. (They are called Intel files). Or that NSA is not engaged in a massive data gathering operation. On the bright side, it is so massive, it is next to useless...why they miss plots all the fucking time.

But hey, if you want to live in a police state (you do) and sleep walk through it, by all means. At times it's best not to wake up and smell the damn coffee. Once you do, it's hard to go back to sleep.

Oh and hi guys, I know I activated the dictionary, so this will be priority. Heard of the Constitution? It's not just good for wiping your ass.

Funny thing, this whole conversation has hit those wickets

[True Earthling]

32. Any evidence of Judith Miller taking directions directly from a gov't official?

Ahmad Chalabi may have been a tool of Rumsfield, Cheney etc but he was not a gov't employee as far as I know. I can't equate what Miller did with an all out organized propaganda program.

BTW - please don't put words in my mouth or tell me what I want. I respect your opinion but that is rude.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. You can live in that fantasy

In fact you do. Why do you think I said we need hearings.

You really need to read into inverted totalitarianism. Yes, it is a thing...or maybe it is best if you walk away and never ever do that hard reading. Some people can't handle it. Somehow I suspect you are one of them. So I will be kind to you and walk away from this conversation. But the evidence is all over, if you only open your eyes.

Perhaps it's best you remain naive and innocent

[True Earthling]

34. Not too judgmental...

are we?

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. Not one bit

I am being kind

[True Earthling]

36. Now who's being naive and innocent?

Some people can't handle disagreement. Somehow I suspect you are one of them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. Not one bit

I've done that hard reading. So my view has that thing about being informed

I could point to reading to be done, but it would be a waste of both our times

[True Earthling]

48. You just can't help yourself...

Insulting people seems to be 2nd nature for you.

When a person responds to disagreements with insults.. that pretty much proves you can't handle it.

[Glassunion]

16. What are the odds

I'm more likely to be killed by a police officer than I am to be killed by a terrorist.

Odds of being killed by a terrorist - 1:20,000,000
Odds of being killed by a cop - 1:355,000

Now, I'm in a separate demographic that sustains a higher probability of being killed by a police officer with 1:125,000 odds.

So, for every 10 US citizens (world-wide) killed by terrorists, the police will kill 563.

[randome]

21. It's not about you. San Bernardino residents may have thought the same as you.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. You might want to do some reading

On the American oligarchy. Our form of fascism is different, that is all.

[awoke_in_2003]

50. Read it again

I have read it every 5 years or so since leaving high school 30 years ago. Both it, and Huxley's Brave New World, get truer with every reading.

[Warren DeMontague]

54. Right, because every time they need more power to "fight terror", what do they do with it?

Do they fight terror?



No, they comb through your shit because they spend fifty thousand times more energy trying to put people in jail for smoking pot than they do fighting "terror".

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/10/the_nsa_dea_police_state_tango/

Surprise! Controversial Patriot Act power now overwhelmingly used in drug investigations

[LiberalArkie]

12. They: the ones who can call up a "friend" and have them check on their competitor.

They: the ones who want to know everything there is to know about the person who just won the election somewhere.

[Downwinder]

13. With sharing, what the FBI gets,NSA gets.

NSA shares with allied organizations both foreign and domestic.

[dixiegrrrrl]

45. Our Gov't, as it turns out:

Secret Memo Details U.S.’s Broader Strategy to Crack Phones

Silicon Valley celebrated last fall when the White House revealed it would not seek legislation forcing technology makers to install “backdoors” in their software -- secret listening posts where investigators could pierce the veil of secrecy on users’ encrypted data, from text messages to video chats. But while the companies may have thought that was the final word, in fact the government was working on a Plan B.

In a secret meeting convened by the White House around Thanksgiving, senior national security officials ordered agencies across the U.S. government to find ways to counter encryption software and gain access to the most heavily protected user data on the most secure consumer devices, including Apple Inc.’s iPhone, the marquee product of one of America’s most valuable companies, according to two people familiar with the decision.

The approach was formalized in a confidential National Security Council “decision memo,” tasking government agencies with developing encryption workarounds, estimating additional budgets and

identifying laws that may need to be changed to counter what FBI Director James Comey calls the “going dark” problem: investigators being unable to access the contents of encrypted data stored on mobile devices or traveling across the Internet.

Details of the memo reveal that, in private, the government was honing a sharper edge to its relationship with Silicon Valley alongside more public signs of rapprochement.

On Tuesday, the public got its first glimpse of what those efforts may look like when a federal judge ordered Apple to create a special tool for the FBI to bypass security protections on an iPhone 5c belonging to one of the shooters in the Dec. 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California that killed 14 people. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has vowed to fight the order, calling it a “chilling” demand that Apple “hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers.” The order was not a direct outcome of the memo but is in line with the broader government strategy.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-19/secret-memo-details-u-s-s-broader-strategy-to-crack-phones

[True Earthling]

47. Also from the same article...

"My sense is that people have over-read what the White House has said on encryption," Robert Knape, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and former White House Director of Cybersecurity Policy, told Bloomberg. "They said they wouldn’t seek to legislate ‘backdoors’ in these technologies. They didn’t say they wouldn’t try to access the data in other ways."

The NSC memo didn't imply any any intent to engage in any kind of mass surveillance or illegal spying. They we're looking to enact legislation to enable LE to access the data in other ways.

[2naSalit]

52. Well, for one

and he's, I hope, never going to be elected to anything ever again, especially president!

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/19/467395218/ted-cruz-campaign-takes-voter-micro-targeting-to-next-level

[Downwinder]

2. Not hearing anything from Microsoft or Google.

Guess they have given in and have their back doors in place. How about Linux?

[LiberalArkie]

3. I think Google has sided with Apple in one report I read.

Apple has been bigger on this since Eric Schmidt was on the board of Apple and went back to Google and started building their own phones and OS.

Apple has really made the corporate spying business more difficult and that is what this is about, not your phone or my phone. It is about the CEO's phones out there. The power people want to know who is going to merge with who. Who is going to raise or lower prices. Who is going to support who in the election.

[TipTok]

5. Google chimed in...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-18/google-sides-with-apple-in-protesting-government-decryption

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. Most tech companies, including Microsoft and Google, are backing Apple

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella followed suit by retweeting a link to a Reform Government Surveillance (RGS) statement posted by Microsoft’s Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith. The RGS coalition is made up of 10 technology firms, including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo.

http://europe.newsweek.com/google-microsoft-and-facebook-back-apple-encryption-battle-fbi-428014?rm=eu

[Arazi]

6. Good. I'm glad Apple is fighting this

“Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
Benjamin Franklin

[saturnsring]

8. where there will be 4-4 decision - it's so nice to be able to say 4-4 instead of 5-4

[TipTok]

10. Scalia was pretty solid on the 4th...

[ananda]

14. Back in the day, Louis Brandeis wrote the rulebook for privacy.

Maybe it needs an update.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. Since the SC will likely vote 4-4,

The FBI will probably want to steer this issue through the Fifth Circuit, as it seems to be right-wing corporate reliable. Apple will try to steer it through the Ninth Circuit, a reliably left-leaning court.

Trying to get to a friendly Circuit will be a tactical ploy, made more important by an evenly split SC.

[suffragette]

24. Wouldn't California place it in the Ninth Circuit? No steering needed by Apple.

Steering it to the Fifth Circuit would be a visible ploy, then.

[Heeeeers Johnny]

27. From my limited understanding of the way the system works...

it would have to be heard by the 9th.

Apple Inc's headquarters is located in Cupertino, California and the order was filed in the California US District court.

https://cryptome.org/2016/02/apple-16-0216.pdf

[suffragette]

37. Makes sense to me.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

38. Is Apple in California?

Or is it in Ireland?

Didn't they do some kind of move to avoid taxes?

If it's in the Ninth, then Apple has it made. FBI won't stand a chance.

[suffragette]

40. Headquarters still in Cupertino, CA as far as I can tell

and lawsuit was filed in central California.

[malaise]

39. I'm siding with Apple

Rec

[suffragette]

42. Yes, and with ACLU, EFF AND Amnesty International

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/eff-aclu-amnesty-international-voice-103254697.html

Also, have you have seen this article. Very interesting analysis.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/inside-the-fbis-encryption-battle-with-apple

[malaise]

43. Thanks sis

That is an excellent article in the Guardian

[suffragette]

49. You're welcome!

Hope all is well with you.

[malaise]

53. Back at you

I'm very well - looking forward to elections in Jamaica next week.

[Warren DeMontague]

55. ME TOO

[LittleBlue]

41. I see why they hired Tim Cook

He is very good at influencing people. Good position to take, and good PR for Apple.

[Blue_Tires]

44. So what's the endgame after the Supreme Court?

Either Cook loses and has to comply...

or Cook wins and in addition to the guidelines on how warrants are issued needing to be re-written from scratch, I guess law enforcement will get their budgets tripled so they can hire in-house hacking firms?

Personally I don't think this ever makes the USSC, which would be couple of years at least, and that's way too long a time for this PR coup not to blow up in Cook's face...

[Turbineguy]

51. Interestingly enough this just might result

in a giant leap backwards for mobile phones and other data transfer devices.