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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.

8 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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    BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    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 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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      Imagine all the people...
  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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    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. 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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      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. 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.

  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.