That evidence would be valuable, but stopping criminals or nation states from looking on people’s phones without permission is also valuable. I’m particularly worried about countries other than the USA and criminals though I also don’t want the USA snooping without a warrant. Your example is also pretty weak. I don’t understand how they happen on his phone and look at his calendar without having him in custody already or at least knowing you looked.
I think encryption keys and the Fifth are all over the place to date and there is no consensus, but I could be wrong.
If authorities have the person in custody, they can at least try to have the court force the defendant to give up the password in at least some cases, though again I’m not sure about case law. If they don’t have access to the suspect, they won’t have access to the suspect’s physical phone anyway so encryption of data at rest is moot.
I would be interested in actual cases where encryption would have hurt the prosecution. I have to admit even if an example is found, I’d still think it was an exception and doubt it will change my opinion.
The cat is out of the bag as far as encryption unless you want to make it illegal. I can’t even fathom that the government suddenly thinks this is a debate again after the crypto wars of the 1990s. Look up the clipper chip fiasco.
It is bad for privacy, information security, democracy, and the US economy to try and ban or weaken encryption. On top of all that, I’m skeptical how much it will actually hurt law enforcement not to have a back door.
This isn’t about people who are the subject of court orders. It’s about companies being made to comply with the federal government even when the government is breaking the law or acting without the public’s knowledge. The companies seem to feel that this violates the wishes of their customers and their own particular codes of ethics.
“So anyone can encrypt stuff if they choose, and the government can’t really do anything about that,” which means you agree with the side you’re arguing against. “Anyone” includes the people that own, operate, and work at Apple, Google, and other companies.
Unless they pass a law against it, the government can’t do anything about it except what they have already done for years, which is apply a lot of pressure in the background, including subverting public cryptographic algorithms and more. I’m not okay with this for many of the reasons I’ve already argued in this thread, but at least a law would be the right way to do it rather than all the back room dealings.
Let’s just get this straight: this has fuck-all to do with Edward Snowden, if that’s what you’re saying.
This is about police, whether local or Federal, with a search warrant (pursuant to the recent Supreme Court case which so directed), being able to execute such a search. Previously, Apple or whomever could be compelled to satisfy that court order, or so I’ve read. That will not be possible on these newer devices. So yes, it actually is about court orders and search warrants, and has nothing to do with FISA.
The public’s distrust of governmental surveillance and its interest in greater security for electronic devices has a great deal to do with Edward Snowden.
Are we referring to the same public that supported the invasion of Iraq to go get those WMDs that were threatening every shopping mall in this country with those scary, death-spraying UAVs?
Sorry, I don’t alter my views to make them coincide with the general public’s level of understanding about an issue. You can’t make me say that Vikings wore helmets with horns on the sides just because everyone really, really thinks that they did; and you can’t make this issue into something about FISA when it really doesn’t.
Unfortunately, your argument here is veering off into the non-reality based community that some Bush White House staff member talked about; where those people think that observing and studying reality is simply obsolete, and the real action is in manipulating how people think about things. Any discussion Technology + Laws does not equal OMG MASS GOVRNMENTAL SURVEILLANCE STATE!1!
I think we’re actually better off if we avoid cheap and lazy debates like that, or at least try to isolate them to Fox News on the right, the Guardian on the left, and other shitty brands of journalism everywhere else in between.
The point of the exercise is to shift the responsibility to the actual responsible party (the phone owner) and leave tangentially related third parties (Apple and Google) out of it so they can focus on the stuff for which the are actually responsible (making phones that serve their customers’ needs).
Really, this is a simple concept. If the police can’t find fingerprints on a baseball bat that was soaked in bleach, should they subpoena the Spaulding and Clorox companies? If the police couldn’t read something because it was written in Klingon, should they subpoena Marc Okrand?
Well, in this case both were served. You may rail at the invisible hand of the market because it flipped you the finger, but don’t expect the rest of us to sympathize.
James B. Comey is attempting to appeal to that public with his ZOMG TERRAISTS THINKA TEH CHILDRUN!!! rhetoric. Unfortuntely for him, that public has wised up after been burned too many times.
Come on – the point of the exercise is for the tech companies to one-up each other on saying, “We are the securist!” “No, my security is a gazillion times better!” “Your phone is as secure as a wet paper bag!” I get that, and it makes sense. I’m just don’t think our laws are yet able to deal with that situation, and that there will be consequences.
But get real – you don’t seriously propose the idea that Apple and Google are out of the business of dealing with what information is on a phone? You think Google is going to stop monitoring what websites you visit on your phone, or stop screening Gmail to better target advertisements? You think Apple isn’t collecting traffic data while you are navigating, and probably selling your iTunes listening habits or whatnot? You call this type of activity “tangientially related?”
No, of course not. Those companies aren’t getting out of the data business, and you know it. And as far as the Chlorox analogy, I think you’re back to making up these scenarios that aren’t even really on topic at all… and your Klingon comment has me totally baffled. Did you wander into the wrong thread right then?
I see – I looked at his radical, saber-rattling statement on the matter:
Holy shit, this guy is like Che Guevara crossed with Charles Manson on his over the top rhetoric! How did he ever get through Senate confirmation with this Rush Limbaugh-like penchant for exaggeration!?!?
Somehow my post triggered a staggering burst of irrelevance.
My argument is that the recent disclosures of mass surveillance are coloring this discussion: there is more demand for security and encryption because the public recently discovered the government is spying on the public en masse. The government demonstrated it wasn’t trustworthy, so now people don’t trust it as much as they did. I’m not saying that those disclosures justify every possible security countermeasure, but it’s foolish to pretend that’s not going on. Do you think Apple would be doing this otherwise? I doubt it. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s going to take more than “this has fuck-all to do with Edward Snowden” to convince me.
Oh, I get you – complying with a search warrant is like sexual assault. Well, I’ll just leave you to wallow in your outrage at the checks and balances of our judicial system that perpetrates intellectual rape on major American corporations, or something.
By the way, you’re the one who said that Google and Apple are only “tangentially” related to data collection. And you still have no clue about the difference between “snooping” and “putting a murderer behind bars,” do you?
I’m afraid trying to describe why a search warrant is not like sexual assault is as difficult to describe as how I am like a writing desk.
BTW, are you aware of the facts of the cases that led to the Supreme Court (correctly IMHO) ruling that search warrants are required before police can intrude on a cell phone?