Company, not Cook, will be held responsible if Apple loses fight over FBI case, experts say

AppleInsider

Although CEO Tim Cook could, theoretically, be put in prison if Apple continues to refuse the order to help the FBI unlock an iPhone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, more likely is that the company itself might be held in contempt, according to a pair of experts weighing in on the matter.

A privacy lawyer with the Electornic Frontier Foundation, Lee Tien, told Quartz that the company could potentially be hit with severe fines. Specifically he referred to a 2007 case, in which the U.S. government allegedly threatened Yahoo with fines up to $250,000 per day if it refused to share data wanted for surveillance.

Both Yahoo and Apple were among several major U.S. tech companies later identified as participants -- willing or unwilling -- in PRISM, a National Security Agency program scooping up vast amounts of Internet communications data. That program was exposed in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

A national security law expert at American University, Stephen Vladeck, also supported the view that Apple as a whole could be held in contempt.

Cook has said that he's willing to resist the order as far as a Supreme Court challenge, though a lawyer for the company -- Ted Olson -- said on Friday that Apple will probably back down if it loses at that level. No penalties are likely to come into force unless Apple makes a stand past that point, and therefore breaks the law.

ceek74

sog35 said:

For all those who support the FBI answer this question:

Would you allow the USA government to put a tracking device on the wrist of every single person on USA soil?

The device would have to be worn 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The device would be locked on your wrist and almost impossible to take off by a regular citizen. If you take it off you can be sent to jail. It would track everywhere you go, everyone you speak to, and even record conversations. But such a device would decrease crime and probably would have stopped this recent terrorist attack in California. We should do everything to stop terrorism right?  Even if it means giving up some liberty and privacy?

Isn't that right FBI supporters?

We're almost there.

curt12

Back when Yahoo was in the hot seat, the govt threatened exponentially increasing fines. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/09/15/you-think-youve-got-bills-government-could-have-fined-yahoo-trillions-of-dollars/

rob53

I'm still trying to understand what legal request Apple isn't complying with. They've provided the FBI with everything they can find. What's left?

if you say hacking the phone I doubt there's any legal precedence requiring them to do so. 

blastdoor

$250k/day doesn't seem too bad -- it's less than $100 million per year, which really isn't enough to register on Apple's earrings report. 

Seems like that's worth doing. 

roake

A third-grader could have come to the conclusion mentioned in the headline.

adrayven

We're no where near there yet though.. Right now, it's an appealable case.. These fines only come into play if they refuse AFTER they loose all options to appeal.. Gov't cannot impost fines until after and if this goes to Supreme Court, looses, and STILL refuses to comply.

This article is nothing but a fear mongering piece. Intentionally builds up the OMG .. then says at the end ... well, they're not likely to go that far. DUR..

e350coupe

Formal those apple supporters answer this. Would you continue to allow all terrorists, organized criminals, hitmen, and drug dealers to do business with absolute certainty, that because they are using apple products that they cannot be detected regardless what attempts are legally made by law enforcement through the courts. We are not saying that at whim law enforcement would have to write an order detailing their reasons for invading such privacy, but they would have to take this order to a judge and convince this person who in most cases are elected by the general public and convince this judge of their reasons and if this person agree's then and only then they would get permission. Stop the fear mongering, your comments are utter exaggeration and no one has even implied any such thing, the government is by the people and for the people. If you don't like the government then you have every right to attempt to change it, but suggesting the above is absolutely ridiculous.

blastdoor

curt12 said:

Back when Yahoo was in the hot seat, the govt threatened exponentially increasing fines. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/09/15/you-think-youve-got-bills-government-could-have-fined-yahoo-trillions-of-dollars/

Oh.... well, that would be quite a bit worse than $250k / day. 
But it would also be politically risky for the government -- are they going to really threaten to destroy the most successful company in American history? I bet not. 

thewhitefalcon

The FBI needs to be stopped. 

msantti

Wow.

Still talking about this.

buzdots

Maybe Cook should ask for a token development fee of One Trillion US to create the back door - destroying it each time.  That would force Congress into appropriation.  Then we would see who really supports this wild ass screw of the constituents.

kent909

e350coupe said:

Formal those apple supporters answer this. Would you continue to allow all terrorists, organized criminals, hitmen, and drug dealers to do business with absolute certainty, that because they are using apple products that they cannot be detected regardless what attempts are legally made by law enforcement through the courts. We are not saying that at whim law enforcement would have to write an order detailing their reasons for invading such privacy, but they would have to take this order to a judge and convince this person who in most cases are elected by the general public and convince this judge of their reasons and if this person agree's then and only then they would get permission. Stop the fear mongering, your comments are utter exaggeration and no one has even implied any such thing, the government is by the people and for the people. If you don't like the government then you have every right to attempt to change it, but suggesting the above is absolutely ridiculous.

The iPhone did not exist on 9/11. So why did law enforcement not stop that? Those terrorists were not able to hide behind iPhone encryption. If you think Apple should comply then why don't you call your Senator or Congressperson and ask them to pass a law that removes all debate about what Apple should have to do. "Government by the people and for the people." Arn't you cute.

damonf

This is a really bizarre "what if" article.  Of course Apple will comply if they lose, but they will first take it all the way up to the Supreme Court, if they have to.  And they have a right to, despite some politicians yelling out "Apple has no right...."  Yes, they do.  They have a right to disagree, and a right to fight it in court.  This is still with the magistrate judge who put the order in and gave Apple a chance to respond.  Apple has filed its motion with the judge asking for the order to assist the FBI be vacated.  If Apple's motion is denied, they will appeal to the 9th Circuit Court, and so on until it's either finally vacated or the U.S. Supreme Court says "no" or declines to take it on (thus allowing the lower court ruling to stand).  And if that should happen, Apple will begrudgingly assist the FBI.

Urei1620

you can't compare Apple with Yahoo. Apple is among the top 10 companies paying the most taxes to the US Government. There is some major leverage there. It would be in the US Government's best interest to let this go.

williamh

thewhitefalcon said:

The FBI needs to be stopped. 

That editorial cartoon is right on.  Our legal system is based in part on the premise that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.   There are something like a billion iOS users right now.  We're talking about Apple creating a compromised OS that would potentially cause a billion to suffer in order for the FBI to get on to "one" phone that some in law enforcement acknowledge is unlikely to contain anything of value.

1) I understand that the phone could contain something of value and that is part of the price of protecting our freedom.  If that sounds rough, consider that soldiers go out to fight and die for that - no hypothetical harm in that case but rather quantifiable deaths.
2) I'll stipulate that the government would keep its end of the bargain and would not be able to compromise other phones, but our security will nonetheless be suspect since the poisoned iOS will be "out there."  The harm will be done whether the government gets anything out of it or not.

jkichline

sog35 said:

For all those who support the FBI answer this question:

Would you allow the USA government to put a tracking device on the wrist of every single person on USA soil?

The device would have to be worn 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The device would be locked on your wrist and almost impossible to take off by a regular citizen. If you take it off you can be sent to jail. It would track everywhere you go, everyone you speak to, and even record conversations. But such a device would decrease crime and probably would have stopped this recent terrorist attack in California. We should do everything to stop terrorism right?  Even if it means giving up some liberty and privacy?

Isn't that right FBI supporters?

Very good point. The only difference between this and what we have to day is that people are willing connected to such a device and that the FBI would just need to have a reason to take the physical device and search it through a warrant if the precedent is set that Apple is trying to prevent.

jkichline

buzdots said:

Maybe Cook should ask for a token development fee of One Trillion US to create the back door - destroying it each time.  That would force Congress into appropriation.  Then we would see who really supports this wild ass screw of the constituents.

They should charge the government for the development of this and they should destroy it each time. However I doubt that it would cost a trillion dollars to develop. If it does... we really need a Tim Cook as Dr. Evil meme.

razormaid

What if Apple wrote something that "accidentally" wiped the phone?  I mean how many times do we go through betas when we're testing software?  7, 8, 9 revisions or more?  Sometimes even the fix for beta 5 breaks something that was working fine in betas 1 - 4. It happens all the time. They certainly can't have us beta testers test their crack. Holy crap. Hell look what happened to the people who thought they'd save money having a non apple tech guy repair their home button. 

So will Apple be responsible for accidentally wiping it too?  i mean shit happens right?  <GRIN> After all it WAS the brainiacs at the FBI who thought it was a good idea for the San Betnafino County IT guy to assign the device a new Apple ID and password. God lord have these people never sold an iPhone on Craig's list?  That's what you do when you want to purposely loose your shit and sell it but too lazy to get erase it. <LOL> What buffoons are running their IT?  And the FBI actually thought "Yeah let's do that!!  I mean let's not take it to apple right?"  Any Genius Bar tech would have known "Go to your house where it knows the WIFI and we can start a manual iCloud backup for you". Idiots from the get go

Urei1620

thewhitefalcon said:

The FBI needs to be stopped. 

James Comey should come clean about his coercive tactics and step down as Director of the FBI.

jkichline

e350coupe said:

Formal those apple supporters answer this. Would you continue to allow all terrorists, organized criminals, hitmen, and drug dealers to do business with absolute certainty, that because they are using apple products that they cannot be detected regardless what attempts are legally made by law enforcement through the courts. We are not saying that at whim law enforcement would have to write an order detailing their reasons for invading such privacy, but they would have to take this order to a judge and convince this person who in most cases are elected by the general public and convince this judge of their reasons and if this person agree's then and only then they would get permission. Stop the fear mongering, your comments are utter exaggeration and no one has even implied any such thing, the government is by the people and for the people. If you don't like the government then you have every right to attempt to change it, but suggesting the above is absolutely ridiculous.

The issue is this... even if Apple completely removes encryption from their devices (and keep in mind that encryption is not illegal), then the criminals would simply install an app that supported full end-to-end encryption on a device like Android or anything else.  Another company would make a secure device and you'd be back to square one.  Apple is simply the best at it right now and encryption of personal information is completely legal in this country.  The minute that it's not, I'm finding a country where it is and moving.  Sorry, but we have the right to privacy as a basic human right.  In this age, that privacy is more and more digital in nature.

I'd rather torture the criminal to unlock the phone and take that right away from someone who did something wrong than to make everyone in the country give in to terrorist's demands and ideals.  They want to take our freedom away. Congratulations on supporting that agenda.