APPLE Wins Major Court VICTORY in its Battle Against FBI in a Case Similar to San Bernardino

[Segami]

Apple today scored a major legal victory in its battle against the FBI when a Magistrate Judge in New York rejected the U.S. Government’s request as part of a drug case to force the company to help it extract data from a locked iPhone. The ruling from U.S. Magistrate James Orenstein was issued as part of the criminal case against Jun Feng, who pleaded guilty in October to drug charges, and is a significant boost to Apple’s well-publicized campaign to resist the FBI’s similar efforts in the case of the San Bernardino killers.

In the case that gave rise to today’s ruling, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) had seized – but, even after consultation with the FBI, claimed it was unable to access – Feng’s iPhone 5. The DEA and FBI said they could not overcome security measures embedded in Apple’s operating system. The Government thus filed a motion seeking an order requiring “Apple to assist” the investigation “under the authority of the All Writs Act” (AWA) – the same 1789 law the FBI is invoking in the San Bernardino case – by “help[ing] the government bypass the passcode security.” Apple objected, noting that there were currently pending nine other cases in which the Government was seeking a similar order.

Judge Orenstein applied previous legal decisions interpreting the AWA and concluded that the law does not “justif[y] imposing on Apple the obligation to assist the government’s investigation against its will.” In a formulation extremely favorable to Apple, the Judge wrote that the key question raised by the Government’s request is whether the AWA allows a court “to compel Apple – a private party with no alleged involvement in Feng’s criminal activity – to perform work for the government against its will.”

The court ruled that the law permits no such result – both because relevant law contains limits on what companies like Apple are required to do, and because Congress never enacted any such obligations. Moreover, the Judge said of the Government’s arguments for how the AWA should be applied: “the implications of the government’s position are so far-reaching – both in terms of what it would allow today and what it implies about Congressional intent in 1789 – as to produce impermissibly absurd results.”


cont'

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/29/apple-wins-major-court-victory-in-its-battle-against-fbi-in-a-case-similar-to-san-bernardino/

[Albertoo]

1. Apple shouldn't be above the 4th Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. This is not a 4th amendment issue

It is whether the Gov't has the power to compel a private business to create code for one of their products which they have designed for their customers, and which customers bought in the expectation that privacy was a feature.

[Albertoo]

3. I beg to difer

Your phone is not different from a paper file in your home. If there is a reasonable suspicion you have a document in your home which can prove you are planning a crime, the seizure of which could foil your plans, a judge would have reasonable cause to issue a search warrant.
In the exact same way, there is a reasonable assumption that the data in the San Bernardino's shooters phones could yield information valuable to foil future threats. There is therefore a reasonable reason to not get around the password in the same way the police would open your door to access your paper file.

[EdwardBernays]

4. The government

can not be trusted with this technology...

And legal issues are often not decided on legal bases, but are arbitrarily decided for political and other reasons. Plus we know that as soon as Apple hands over the keys to iPhone encryption those keys will immediately be abused by unaccountable government employees.

Plus, the the threat of terrorism isn't large enough to justify allowing thousands of government employees access to people's data arbitrarily, which is how it would play out, considering how many courts simply rubber stamp government requests.

So... good for Apple.

[Albertoo]

6. Disagree, for a very simple reason

To potentially abuse the power to decipher a phone, government would need to get a warrant to get your phone first. Disbaling the code encryption needs physical intervention, you can't just hack your mobile from a distance. That would severely limit attempts to abuse the power to neutralize the access code. While allowing hand phones to be safe havens for terror plot data doesn't sound a promising path.

[EdwardBernays]

7. No

In case you haven't noticed the government has a bad habit of either using judges to rubber stamp warrants, lying about how they stole your property or illegally searching your electronic devices at a border. And btw you assume it needs physical intervention and will always. But that's just an assumption.

[Albertoo]

10. it does, and will in the foreseeable future

[Logical]

8. Bullshit. Apple has all the right in the world to make their phone unhackable by anyone. nt

[Albertoo]

11. But that's the point: it is not unhackable

It is hackable provided some physical intervention by Apple.

[Logical]

12. And Apple should not have to unlock it. Not their problem. It is the governments. nt

[Albertoo]

13. Not if they have a warrant. That's why there are courts.

[Logical]

14. Well, we disagree. But good news is apple will make IOS 10 impossible for anyone to break. nt

[Albertoo]

15. Nothing is impossible

Especially if Johnny English accepted to take on the case

[Egnever]

16. Is that really good news?

I am not so sure.

Creating a black hole that can not be touched for any reason seems a bit much to me. I get not wanting the government spying on everyone but there are legitimate reasons to want this information at times.

[Logical]

19. I don't trust them as much as you do. Nt

[Egnever]

20. Well that's not really an answer

unless you are saying you do think it is a good idea to have an impenetrable data storage for the masses including all criminals not subject to any warrant.

Sounds like free reign to do a lot of nefarious stuff to me.

[Logical]

22. I think the government having access to data with sealed warrants and secret judges....

Is worse than total privacy.

You over estimate the terror threat like the idiots who voted for the patriot act.

[Egnever]

28. It goes way beyond terrorism

What about say credit card thieves? They can now store the database of stolen credit cards on their phones with no worry because.... Privacy?

Terrorist are a tiny fraction of all the crimes I can see using phones that are untouchable black boxes for.

What about child pornography? Now you can just take and store the photos with your phone and never have to worry it will be discovered?

I don't think you have thought this through.

Or maybe you have and just don't care cause the government might spy on you so... Privacy?

[Warren DeMontague]

30. The authorities are going to have to learn to live with it.

Strong Encryption is here to stay, and there are a lot of reasons to support it other than "bad people want it to help them do bad things".

Also, for all the hyperbole, the reality is that when the authorities get the tools to stop the long list of horrible things their apologists come up with, what do they REALLY end up using them for, mostly? To bust people for using drugs.

End of fucking story.

[Egnever]

31. So the answer isn't legalize drugs

It's create an unbreakable black box for every moron on the planet?

That seems pretty short sighted to me.

Forget that there has never been such a device for the masses ever.

[Warren DeMontague]

32. There weren't smartphones "ever", until a few years ago, either.

Hear me out for a minute; we know that the authorities have already defined "national security" as "spying on Americans for drug crimes and then feeding that unconstitutional surveillance data to the DEA/local Law Enforcement", right?

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

So why should your run of the mill foreign company with billions of dollars in proprietary trade secrets trust that the US government isn't also going to define national security as "industrial espionage on the behalf of our well-connected domestic corporations"?

The only alternative to an "unbreakable black box" is a breakable one, and if you make it breakable for "good" entity X it is also inherently more breakable for bad entity Y. Pretty much every educated cybersecurity expert on the planet agrees, a backdoor that only "the good guys" can use doesn't exist. You weaken the encryption you weaken it across the board.

I think the cost of having some data- even in the hands of "bad guys" that the gov't maybe cannot access, is a worthy tradeoff for the absolutely necessary security for our data we require in this century.

Furthermore, the NSA is still getting billions of dollars to make sure that that hard-to-access data is accessible. I suspect that the FBI has some very expensive ways they could get into the San Bernadino phone, they'd just much rather set a precedent to have apple do it for them for far cheaper and easier. If it was really about that "one phone with the lifesaving information" they would do that- it's not, it's about the 100 or so phones of regular-ass nonviolent drug cases that the NY DA wants into, etc.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Yeah, and every time they ask for "terror fighting" tools they use them to go after drug users.

No thanks.

[malaise]

5. because relevant law contains limits on what companies like Apple are required to do,

and because Congress never enacted any such obligations.

Good news - Let Congress Act - I'm with Apple.

[Logical]

9. Me too!! nt

[backscatter712]

17. Good! What the feds want Apple to make is a skeleton key that will unlock any iPhone.

That's what this is all about. Not just one phone belonging to a terrorist, but the other phones from people not so nefarious that the feds would use this tool against.

Today, they're going "BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA! TERRORISTS! LOOK AT THE EVIL TERRORIST!" to get support for forcing Apple to make the cracking tool.

The problem is that while the first time, it'll be used against a terrorist, next time, it'll be used against a pot-smoker.

If the feds did succeed in making Apple make a cracking tool for them, it would be opening a Pandora's Box.

The math is plain. You cannot make a security backdoor for a cryptography-protected device or piece of software that can only be used by the Good Guys. What if Bad Guys get a hold of the tool? What if the Good Guys turn into Bad Guys? (Ask Snowden about that.) What if the creation of the tool creates a security flaw that will result in everyone's phone becoming vulnerable?

[TipTok]

21. There's no if in any of that...

If they were to make it, Apple would have to share that tech with every country where they sell apple products.

It is an absolute certainly it will get out.

[Jitter65]

18. I really am ambivalent about this. i can see both sides.

I wish there was some way for the FBI to get the information for just this case.
But I see new legislation coming if they can't.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. Id be more ambivalent if they didnt always use these "special terror tools" to go after drug users.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. So much for Comey's line re: "its just about this one phone". it's mostly about the drug war.

Theyve got hundreds of phones of people arrested for things like smoking pot, that they want desperately to get into. "Terrorism" shmerrorism.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. I *Proudly Stand* with Apple.

[JonLeibowitz]

27. I *Proudly Stand* with Apple.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. I like yours better, so I'm stealing it.

fixed!