US Government Pushed Many Tech Firms To Hand Over Source Code (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Apple isn't the only company that has been asked to hand over the source code of its operating system. In an effort to find security flaws that could be used for surveillance or investigations, the U.S. government has made numerous attempts to obtain the source code from other tech companies. From the ZDNet report, "The government has demanded source code in civil cases filed under seal but also by seeking clandestine rulings authorized under the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a person with direct knowledge of these demands told ZDNet. The Justice Department wanted to draw outrage, painting Apple as the criminal. With these hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing 'most of the time.'"

Comments

Turs out the US of A is no different!

[bogaboga]

...hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing 'most of the time...

Can some one explain to me how this behaviour by our [democratic] government, is very very different as compared to similar action taken by "those regimes" to the east? I mean, I do not see the difference here!

Re:Turs out the US of A is no different!

[bigpat]

...hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing 'most of the time...

Can some one explain to me how this behavior by our [democratic] government, is very very different as compared to similar action taken by "those regimes" to the east? I mean, I do not see the difference here!

We "Aspire" to be better... Americans aspire towards Liberty, Freedom of Speech, Free elections and when we fall short we are supposed to feel bad about it. For over two centuries we have been unsteadily moving towards our ideals. Belief in Liberty had to overcome the realities of slavery and then Jim Crow laws. Belief in Freedom of Speech is always under continuous assault by those with power to coerce. Our rights to privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures have come under increasing attack lately, but have always been at the mercy of the fears and threats of the day. Our right to bear arms to defend ourselves have steadily eroded in the past 30 or 40 years or so. Democracy is just as beholden to the Party bosses that manipulate local elections and local press with casual ease. And good old fashioned corruption is still a big problem in the US as it is everywhere else in the world... These things ebb and flow with the times.

What we are supposed to do as Americans is draw inspiration from the dreams of our founders for Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness and not give into the cynicism that this is 'just the way it is'

Re:I thought we liked open source?

[MightyMartian]

If an organization or individual wishes to license their code under an open source license, then that's great. But when someone is forced to hand over proprietary code to the government via secret tribunals, that's very very fucking bad.

I Goes Deeper Than That, Folks

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple isn't the only company that has been asked to hand over the source code of its operating system.

I heard that even Linux had to hand over the source code of its operating system.

No shit

[penguinoid]

It's becoming obvious that the government needs to be outright forbidden from doing just about anything except a few specific things, rather than merely not authorized. Just like there's hardly any difference between pointing a gun at someone and saying, "Wouldn't it be nice if I had more money?" as compared to saying "Your money or your life." -- nowadays there's very little difference between the government "asking" and the government demanding.

Re:No shit

[kbonin]

I love your comment! You know, that is EXACTLY what the original intent of the US Constitution was - the founders essentially said 'here's a short list of what the Federal government is allowed to do, anything else is up to State legislatures to decide for themselves'. And since then, through a myriad of little cuts, the Constitution has been reinterpreted (as a "living" document) to mean the opposite, and anyone talking about State's Rights is now called a Racist (Because state's rights were cited during slavery debates, therefore all State's Rights are racist, see what they did there?) The Commerce Clause has been interpreted so widely that the Feds can claim authority over almost anything (Wickard v. Filburn: you can't feed your own wheat to your own animals if we tell you not to, as your production of wheat could influence the supply of wheat, which is sold across state boundaries, and therefore we can tell you what to do.) FISA lets our secret tribunals order anyone to do anything without even letting them talk to their own lawyer about it, and thanks to the latest interpretation of the All Writs Act now any court can order anyone to do anything. Welcome to the new definition of "freedom". And pick up that can.

Re:No shit

[kbonin]

Your example is actually incorrect. According to current interpretation of the Commerce Clause, there is no such thing as a local market exempt from federal control, as under the precedent of Wickard v. Filburn; SCOTUS: "[b]ut even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect". And that word "substantial", despite sounding so reasonable, was applied in its initial case to a single farmer who chose to feed his own cows his own grain instead of buying feed, so "substantial" under current precedent has already been scoped down to include things you do on your own land with your own property. I'll state again - the Constitution has been reinterpreted to mean nearly the opposite of what it actually says, in practice. You are free to be a consumer of approved goods you use in approved ways without asking permission, but you have few remaining unencumbered freedoms even on your own land. If you feel otherwise you aren't paying attention.

goofy priorities

[k6mfw]

Reading this along with the other article regarding FBI wants backdoor into Apple phones, I'm thinking law enforcement priorities getting skewed. Reminds me of back in the days when John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde were considered national threats when in reality they were just basic thugs that robbed banks. Larger criminals were the mob (which FBI did nothing about until Hoover died in 1970s) and a even more serious threat was the rise of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

They asked for the linux kernel

[GuB-42]

The US government repeatedly asked Linus Torvalds for the source code of Linux.
I heard they are pretty pissed off, something about being called "git" if I remember correctly.

Re:I thought we liked open source?

[TangoMargarine]

Except they're not handing it over to anybody except the government.

And then any modifications the government makes, nobody else sees either.

So no, not really like open source at all.

A solution: the government will never read my cod

[raymorris]

I have a solution to this. Most of my code can never be read by the government, or anyone else I don't want reading it.

I've made that impossible, by writing it in -Perl-, with page-long regular expressions. :) Just try reading my recursive descent parser for almost-html embedded in almost-xml written as a 8,000 character regex, Obama.