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Arizona County Attorney To Ditch iPhones Over Apple Dispute With FBI (networkworld.com)

Posted by timothy on from the absurdities-keep-piling-up dept.

alphadogg writes: Apple's refusal to help the FBI unlock an iPhone 5c used by one of the terrorists in the San Bernardino, California attack on Dec. 2 has prompted the Maricopa County attorney's office in Arizona to ban providing new iPhones to its staff. 'Apple's refusal to cooperate with a legitimate law enforcement investigation to unlock a phone used by terrorists puts Apple on the side of terrorists instead of on the side of public safety,' Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said in a statement Montgomery described as a corporate public relations stunt Apple's positioning of its refusal to cooperate on privacy grounds. On the other hand, I suspect Apple's public refusal to decrypt, and Tim Cook's strong words in favor of user privacy, have probably triggered an opposite reaction among many would-be phone buyers.

19 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. Government Idiocy by kuzb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wouldn't recommend iphones to anyone but certainly not for this reason. The whole notion of lumping Apple in with this classification of criminal is just batshit crazy.

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    1. Re:Government Idiocy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is Arizona. The guns are already smarter than some of the Sherriffs.

    2. Re:Government Idiocy by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The whole notion of lumping Apple in with this classification of criminal is just batshit crazy.

      The Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio has built his entire political career around being batshit crazy. This is just another political stunt to get his name in the news. If you think the people are too smart to vote for such a shallow egotist, then you have obviously never been to southern Arizona.

    3. Re:Government Idiocy by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No good. Google is on Apple's side here. So Android's out. Microsoft sided with the FBI though. So maybe Arizonans can all switch to windows phone. Then again, it seems that Gates is now trying to backpedal and say he was misinterpreted. So maybe no windows phones after all. Perhaps Arizona can step back a decade and bring back Blackberry. They're pretty happy to roll over and put in backdoors for governments to spy on their citizens.

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    4. Re:Government Idiocy by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      For any but the Nexus devices, it would have to to be the OEMs, since they have the ability to modify and customize Android from its "vanilla" codebase. Google can't take responsibility for code... and especially not hardware and firmware... they do not fully own or control, after all.

      And yeah, Google's response to this issue has been rather milquetoast. There was a time when their reply wrt/ the three-letter-agencies was: "Fuck these guys... the US has to be better than this.". I do miss the "Don't be evil" Google.

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  2. Ok... think about this for a sec... by the_skywise · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A government agency wants to use, factually, LESS secure phones in its office to make a political statement.

    Is the point that government agencies should always use less secure phones so the public can access their salient details? In that case I agree but I don't think that's the point he's trying to make.

  3. Just a stunt ... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is a publicity stunt, but Americans should be terrified that it is now considered un-American for a corporation to refuse to assist the government to spy on citizens and bypass protections.

    I would at least expect some of the Republicans to be howling about this, but it seems like all sides of American politics have pretty much said "refusal to comply with the government demands to spy on people is wrong, we need more government spying".

    Holy crap, guys, really?

    Papers please, comrade. You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

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    1. Re:Just a stunt ... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm against the home builder being compelled to kick the door in for the police because they can't figure out the lock. That's a closer analogy.

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    2. Re:Just a stunt ... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I am against a technology company being compelled to undermine encryption technology so that the law enforcement can go with their usual scope creep from "just for terrorists", to "just for really bad criminals", to "well, maybe tax evasion", to "ok, how about copyright infringement", and finally "because you aren't allowed to keep secrets from us".

      Mark my words, it would be a very short time where every fucking traffic stop, and the cop whips out his handy dandy little phone cracker to check your phone in case you've done anything illegal. You know, just in case they missed something.

      Tell you what, you want the bullshit scenario you describe, make the encryption strong, and make it illegal to not unlock the phone for the police ... have your fucking thought crime where keeping secrets from the government is illegal.

      But don't for a minute pretend this won't go from "this one exceptional circumstance" to "any time we want". Because every other exceptional tool they promised was special and only for extraordinary situations has become used commonly.

      Enjoy your fucking police state.

      But in a world where law enforcement commits perjury by parallel construction to lie about the evidence they have on you and where it came from ... you can't trust them with these tools. Because they use the tools they said would only be used for terrorism, and then it starts to get used for everything else.

      If you found my computer encrypted and I said "no, I won't decrypt it for you", do you think you could just get a warrant and have the people who built the encryption just decode it? Or do you think you'd have to crack it yourself or otherwise coerce me into opening it for you?

      Decryption which is so easily bypassed is useless, and it will be misused by both the criminals in law enforcement, and the rest of the criminals.

      You can't have workable encryption if law enforcement can do an end run around it. And once American law enforcement has it, every other government will demand it.

      Land of the free? Home of the brave? How about land of the scared and whiny who have decided that total compliance with a surveillance state is required?

      Pathetic.

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    3. Re:Just a stunt ... by pr0t0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, what he's saying is closer to being against the builder of the house being forced by the government (by the end of a pen or rifle) to build a special machine that will dig under the house (or any house afterward) to install an access hatch in the basement because they cannot open the front door when executing that warrant.

      Are you stating you would be happier if the government operated like something a little closer to that of East Germany in 1960's and 70's? Because that's where we're heading. People afraid to criticize the government. Citizens reporting each other behavior deemed "unpatriotic". Companies, literally forced to do things they don't want to do, that aren't in their best interest to do, and aren't in the best interest of the citizens to do; because terror.

      Haven't religious radicals done enough to undermine our freedom and way of life? Are we really such cowards? The last line of our national anthem: "O'er the land of the free, and home of the brave". When are we going to start behaving like that again?

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    4. Re: Just a stunt ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      False. My father owns a lock/locksmithing and safe business. He has been hired by police to open locks, and many times refused for a multitude of reasons. He is still in business.

    5. Re:Just a stunt ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you get a search warrant for my property, it allows you to conduct your own fucking search ... it sure as shit doesn't compel me to show you around and help you find the stuff you're looking for. A warrant isn't a magical unicorn, it's a right to search. But it doesn't mean the one being searched needs to assist.

      You can't have it both ways, either you want secure devices, or you want insecure devices to support the police state.

      There is no "mostly secure device except for the police state", technology doesn't work that way, and if one person can exploit it someone else can.

      What you want is a society in which the police can demand any and all parties assist in whatever their needs are.

      In Soviet America, phone searches you.

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    6. Re:Just a stunt ... by danbert8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Even more reason why they shouldn't be forced to assist. The FBI is demanding that Apple work for them. The government is not allowed to force labor except if you've been convicted of a crime (Apple hasn't in this case) or it's the draft.

      This would be analogous to the police demanding the manufacturer of the locks on the searched house break the locks on this house and in effect break every lock they've every sold and will sell in the future.

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    7. Re:Just a stunt ... by adamstew · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is pretty common that people or businesses are being subpoenaed or ordered by the court to cooperate in a criminal investigation, and little care is given for your interest in the matter.

      Subpoenas and court orders to cooperate in investigations have always been along the lines of "come to the courthouse and testify" and "Let us look at your records/books/transaction logs/call logs/records/and any other collection of facts you have within your possession." NEVER has a court order gone so far as to order a company to completely engineer a tool that does not exist.

      Drama much ? Apple is asked to cooperate in a criminal investigation, at little cost to them (just a few hours of labor), and no cost to their other lawful customers.

      I don't care how little or how much it costs, or how long it takes to accomplish. I don't care that they're being compensated for it. It's indentured servitude. They are being forced to apply their trade for the government's benefit with no right to refuse.

    8. Re: Just a stunt ... by sizzzzlerz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Stop using facts in your arguments. This is all about perception.

    9. Re:Just a stunt ... by radarskiy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Apple has not bee served with a warrant or a subpoena. They have been served with a writ of assistance.

  4. refusal to cooperate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple's refusal to cooperate with a legitimate law enforcement investigation to unlock a phone used by terrorists puts Apple on the side of terrorists instead of on the side of public safety

    Apple isn't refusing to cooperate. They are filing an appeal to a novel ruling. There is a difference.

  5. Exactly by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apple DOES cooperate, when they are able to do things like pull data out of iCloud backups.

    What they are being asked to do is write a custom OS for free. To fix a mistake the FBI made.

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  6. opposite reaction by fustakrakich · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is exactly how fascism rises up as a 'peoples' movement via propaganda and hysteria. The Trump phenomenon operates on the same principles. It works today as well as it did 90 years ago. It is a fatal flaw of majority rule.

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