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US Says It Would Use 'Court System' Again To Defeat Encryption (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: U.S. government officials from the FBI director down have said repeatedly that the FBI-Apple legal brouhaha was just about a single phone -- the seized iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooters. And just last week, James Comey, the FBI director, said his fight with Apple wasn't about setting precedent; rather, it was about battling terrorism. But it seems that the storyline has changed. The Justice Department now says it will not hesitate to invoke the precedent it won in its iPhone unlocking case. Having won the court and technological battle a triumphant Department of Justice warned late Monday that its legal battle for what many say amounts to judicially ordered encryption backdoors has only just begun. "It remains a priority for the government to ensure that law enforcement can obtain crucial digital information to protect national security and public safety, either with cooperation from relevant parties, or through the court system when cooperation fails," Melanie Newman, a Justice Department spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to Ars. "We will continue to pursue all available options for this mission, including seeking the cooperation of manufacturers and relying upon the creativity of both the public and private sectors."
How, even by the FBI's twisted reasoning, does the FBI withdrawing it's court order to Apple translate as "legal precedent"? I'd like to think this is the FBI shirking due process, but I suspect the writer of this article may have neglected to clarify some details.
They have experience from doing this for Vietnam and Afghanistan too.
Did the FBI just get one judge to issue an illegal order, then they withdrew the case while that order was under appeal, and claim a precedent-setting win?
I don't see that the feds used the term "legal precedent", but that's clearly the impression they want to give.
Nope, no sig
The precedent was set long ago, that slashdot summaries can and will be crap and that people will react is if they are absolutely true.
And you call the FBI to report it, they don't do anything.
They want weak encryption (or no encryption) that is easily cracked, with plenty of backdoors, and then when criminals expose these weaknesses, the government does nothing to protect the citizens from crime.
But hey, shoot up a private party, and as long as you have a funny-sounding name and vaguely brownish skin color, then the government wants to protect you, at any cost.
Of course, double standard -- if you're a white christian male and you shoot up a school full of kids, the response is "hey, shit happens", and the government does nothing.
Really, this country is fucked. Completely.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
U.S. government forces Microsoft and Apple to put backdoors into their products equals nobody buying anything from these two American companies anymore.
The U.S. government is destroying its own economy!
There are still people who believes government lies.
That would be anybody who votes for a republican or democrat. A little over 98% according to the last numbers. And they are digging in their heels when challenged over it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Law Enforcement seems to be exempt from any laws that inconvenience them....getting a court order was only an attempt at expedience
When all of your wishes have been granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed - Marilyn Manson
Lavabit honorably shut down rather than compromise its users. As far as I'm aware, that was the only legal and ethical way to satisfy the demand for the private keys.
The case didn't complete the challenge, but at the same time, there was no ruling, so there is only one ruling at this time: the court order compelling Apple to cooperate.
So, they didn't actually win the war, but they do have a solid tactical victory under their belts that they could turn strategic under the right circumstances. They may have backed off their offensive this time, but they're still in possession of the battlefield and the territory behind it where they can launch an attack from in the future, at their leisure.
So, for some value of winning, they *have* won something, just not everything all at once.
Did the FBI just get one judge to issue an illegal order, then they withdrew the case while that order was under appeal, and claim a precedent-setting win?
Claiming a win? Sure, because you have people with careers having the biggest-profile case in their life who want to keep their jobs and careers from taking a black mark. Realistically it was sort of a draw and sort of a "let's back the hell off because we might lose this one right now..."
But not exactly on the order. The order wasn't illegal; it's just that it basically issued but Apple could challenge it legally. The briefing to the magistrate judge (which was basically the government vs. the entire tech industry, and was maybe the most extensively briefed issue at the magistrate level in history), would have been the place where it was decided in the first instance, with appeals from there to the district court judge, the court of appeals, and then a petition for (and likely grant of) a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court, where we would have gotten an answer that would probably change when Congress changed the law.
"Abuse" perhaps. But more than that, DELUSION . In reality the FBI has won no precedent, and in fact backed out because the precedent was going to go against them.
These platitudes and pontifications are nothing more than "PR" from the FBI that knows very well they would have lost in a specular way that would have negatively colored EVERY SINGLE "next" case.
Fact is, the FBI whimpered away with their tail between their legs and is trying to make the best of it.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Seems Apple should be able to sue the FBI at this point to request a declaratory judgement against their order, due to the harm it does them to have the question about this order still left open...
We make the math. The system is us. If it is "broken", it means we are.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”