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Does Anybody Believe the FBI Isnâ??t Out to Defeat Encryption?Scott Shackford
FBI Director James Comeystarts his defensehaof their effort to force Apple to help them break into the iPhone of San Bernardino terrorist and killer Syed Farook with a sentence that is that is extremely hard to take seriously: "The San Bernardino litigation isn't about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message."
Thatâ??s from a Sunday contribution on the Lawfare blog, focusing on the same talking points weâ??ve been hearing from the feds since a judge last weekhaordered Applehato take some actions that would make it easier for the FBI to brute force the passcode into Farookâ??s phone. Comey insists that what the FBI is asking for is very narrow and is not about breaking encryption or creating a "master key" to force back doors into encryption.
There are also plenty of appeals to emotion to try to make people feel bad for resisting their efforts. The title of the post is "We Could Not Look the Survivors in the Eye if We Did Not Follow this Lead," a sentiment repeated in the content of the short commentary
The problem with treating Comeyâ??s claim credibly is that we all know full well that the White House, the executive branch, federal law enforcement, and intelligence are all united in a concerted effort to do pretty much the opposite of what Comey says: to find ways to break through encryption. Bloomberg got its hands on ahamemohafrom a strategy meeting from last Thanksgiving that showed that what Comey is doing here is exactly the White Houseâ??s plan:
The approach was formalized in a confidential National Security Council "decision memo," tasking government agencies with developing encryption workarounds, estimating additional budgets and identifying laws that may need to be changed to counter what FBI Director James Comey calls the "going dark" problem: investigators being unable to access the contents of encrypted data stored on mobile devices or traveling across the Internet. Details of the memo reveal that, in private, the government was honing a sharper edge to its relationship with Silicon Valley alongside more public signs of rapprochement.
The argument that accessing Farookâ??s iPhone is an isolated request is very clearly a talking point planned well out in advance, and like many efforts that have come from the White House, weâ??re seeing an obviously organized media blitz to sell it, to the point that theyâ??re overplaying their hand. The Department of Justice (DOJ)harespondedhato Apple CEO Tim Cookâ??s public statement warning against the FBIâ??s demands with a federal court filing calling his concerns an effort to protect his "brand marketing." Apple hadnâ??t even responded to the courtâ??s request yet. This was a public statement from Cook and Apple. And the DOJ responded with ahacourt filinghawithout even waiting to see what arguments Apple actually presented to the judge.
Cook ishasticking to his guns, sending an email out to Apple employees telling them "Apple is a uniquely American company. It does not feel right to be on the opposite side of the government in a case centering on the freedoms and liberties that government is meant to protect." He wants the government to form a tech commission to discuss the privacy implications of what the FBI wants. And he reminds everybody of the obvious that Comey is hoping weâ??ll ignore: That if the government is successful in forcing Apple to help them here, they can come back to the courts again and again and again to order them again and again and again. Comeyâ??s counterargument can be best paraphrased as "No, we wonâ??t," even though everybody knows full well they have a mission to defeat encryption.
In some other news related to the encryption fight, Donald Trump said that people shouldhaboycott Apple, which tells you everything you need to know about what Trump thinks of civil liberties (if you didnâ??t already know he doesnâ??t give a damn about them).
It also turns out the FBI wouldnâ??t have needed to break into Farookâ??s phone at all,haApple claims, if the FBI hadnâ??t arranged to have Farookâ??s passcode reset while the phone was in custody, which cut off the ability to back up the phoneâ??s contents to iCloud (The FBI responded that the iCloud back up doesnâ??t collect all phone data, and they still would have wanted access to the phone from Apple).
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