Law enforcement groups, San Bernardino victims file in support of government in Apple vs FBI row

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Following friend of the court filings in support of Apple's stance on encryption, law enforcement groups and the families of six San Bernardino victims issued countering arguments on Thursday backing the government.




In a filing prepared by California attorney Stephen Larson, victims' families say that data on an iPhone 5c used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook could prove valuable to the ongoing terror investigation and yield answers for families of victims seeking closure, reports BuzzFeed News, which obtained a copy of the document on Thursday. Larson, who previously served as a federal prosecutor and judge in Los Angeles, was asked by U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker and San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos to file the brief representing government interests.

"Ultimately, this is a situation where no stone can be left unturned," the filing reads. It goes on to argue that while the larger debate over encryption has spiraled into arguments over international precedent, the FBI in the case at hand is looking to combat terrorism at home.

Represented by the brief are Greg Clayborn, James Godoy, Tina Meins, Mark Sandefur, Robert Velasco and Hal Houser. Five of the six families lost loved ones in the attack.

"Apple has defended its stance by invoking the public's right to privacy, but that is not what this case is about," the brief says, as reported by the San Jose Mercury News. "This case is about the United States' ability to successfully execute a search warrant ... on an iPhone used by a terrorist."

In a separate joint filing from the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and National Sheriffs' Association, interested parties say Apple's stance is "dangerous." Apple, backed by tech firms and rights groups, is resisting a federal court order to assist in an FBI investigation of Farook's iPhone. The order compels Apple to write a version of iOS vulnerable to brute-force passcode attacks, a move Apple argues threatens the security of all devices running its mobile operating system.

"If Apple can refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement, public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free," the filing reads.

Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym will review the amicus briefs from both sides ahead of a hearing scheduled for March 22.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    "If Apple can refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement, public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free," the filing reads.
    There is nothing "reasonable" about asking a company to build a backdoor into their OS.
    edited March 2016 MacsAlwayssuddenly newtonindyfxbaconstangbanchobadmonkjony0doozydozen
  • Reply 2 of 16
    I think Apple is doing the right thing here..but I must admit renaming the iPhone 7 to the Muhammed Seven seems questionable...
  • Reply 3 of 16
    If Apple loses this case it will be hard to find a criminal's or terrorist's iPhone which won't contain foreign encryption software!
    jony0
  • Reply 4 of 16
    By forcing tech companies to weaken security, it threatens not only privacy but safety as well. Cybercrimes will increase exponentially. Smartphones have a lot valuable data in it that poses a security risk for regular citizens to include financial data, health, location (criminal being able to track you, know where you go and when)..
  • Reply 5 of 16
    ppietrappietra Posts: 288member
    "If Apple can refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement, public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free,"

    This one should be part of textbooks on fallacy, it is quite a piece of art.
    jony0doozydozen
  • Reply 6 of 16
    I suppose it would also be reasonable for all of us to to live in glass houses so everyone can see what we are doing in our homes at any time. The San Bernardino shooting was horrible act of hate. But asking to risk my security in order to see the attackers allahu akbar texts is an unreasonable step out of bounds. The fact of the matter is that the FBI and local law enforcement tried to break into the phone on their own without Apples volunteered assistance. Then when they painted themselves into a corner they demand that Apple make their devices essentially as un-secure as a bead door.
    chabigbaconstangjony0
  • Reply 7 of 16
    iSRSiSRS Posts: 49member
    Soli said:
    "If Apple can refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement, public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free," the filing reads.
    There is nothing "reasonable" about asking a company to build a backdoor into their OS.
    Not only that, but every comment leads me to believe that these families have been sold a bill of goods by the FBI. Apple has not refused any reasonable assistance. This is unreal.
    Solibaconstangicoco3jony0
  • Reply 8 of 16
    steven n.steven n. Posts: 1,229member
    "If Apple can refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement, public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free," the filing reads.

    Encryption

    This debate is a defining moment in the tech industry and its impact will be felt for generations. It's implications don't just impact the US but the world and I don't think most people are looking at the long term impact this ruling will have.

    At the heart of this debate is if we have a right to security.  Not privacy as many have stated but security. In this case security, privacy and freedom line up and it is not the way the FBI wants it.

    Paper.

    There was a time when we would send mail from person to person using paper. Important documentation was printed out as needed and if we needed to destroy it, there was fire and shredders. NOTE: The government never made a shredding company design and invent an de-shredder. But then we started to shift to digital communications and the government started wetting its lips with the potential treasure trove.

    Why? Digital leaves finger prints everywhere it goes. When you send an email the email is routed from server to server to server leaving behind entire copies on computers all over the world. There are wonderful time stamps and trace routes on each copy and it is all in plain text. This is why Hillery's near exclusive use of a personal email for State Department business use is so troubling (and personally why she is unfit to be President). All of those emails are potentially deposited on servers all over the world from Russia to China to Mexico to the US. Email was a wonderful thing for surveillance and Text Messaging. OMG!!! It really became hard to shred documents. It became a feeding frenzy for the NSA and FBI.

    Enter the shredder: Encryption. Open sourced and available to the world for free.

    Many people think of Encryption as a safe but it isn't. It is a shredding/de-shredding technology. A public key is used to shred data into a billion trillion pieces for transmission (this can be from computer to computer or within a computer). This packet of shredded data can be deposited all over the internet and intercepted by anyone but it is completely unreadable. When it arrives at the intended recipient, a carefully guarded private key is used to de-shred it to usable form. If the private key is lost the document is forever shredded.

    Because of the power to the private key, it is important to protect it with multiple levels of security and these designs are hard to get right. In some cases, key pairs are created and destroyed several times a minute. Once a hole is found in the design, they are easily exploited and the encryption serves no purpose. If you engineer in a hole, you destroy the security for EVERYONE using it once the hole is discovered and they always are.

    Now this technology is ubiquitous in everything we do on the internet from messaging, searching, banking, finance, investments and commerce. It is the basis for our personal security. It hides our location from jealous ex-lovers. It hides our logins to our banks. It hides our credit card numbers on Amazon. Security, freedom and privacy line up. Even if you are doing nothing unethical or illegal, you have TONS to hide.

    It also creates a situation where the FBI's feeding frenzy is being placed on a serious diet and the DOJ is having serious issue with this. They call it "going dark" and they are looking for cases to force silicon valley to create de-shredders that can de-shred any document. Farook's iPhone is the perfect wedge. A home grown terror attack on US soil. Public sympathy like you can't believe. It is the wedge the DOJ is using to force the tech industry to allow surveillance on encryption. This is a line in the sand we can not cross as a planet.

    The Clipper Chip and a golden key.

    If you engineer in collisions into the shredding tech, these are now found quickly. A key like this will be worth 100's of millions of dollars and there will be a human somewhere motivated by greed. The NSA tried to create an encryption chip with Key Escrow called the Clipper Chip. It failed because it was hacked in months.

    With encryption EVERYONE is secure or NO ONE is secure there is no middle ground and there is no room for discussion. It is the math behind encryption. Again, there is NO room for discussion. There is no golden key and there is no magic wand capable of allowing surveillance on encrypted data. If a court precedent is set forcing US tech companies to write code to break their own security designs, it will do a few things:

    1) The tech industry will leave to off shore locations.

    2) People will loose faith in on-line commerce.

    3) People will be much less secure in their digital footprint.

    4) Billion's of people will be significantly less secure in their daily lives.

    fotoformatnumenoreansireofsethbaconstangmanfred zornicoco3jony0
  • Reply 9 of 16
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member

    "If Apple can refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement, public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free," the filing reads. 

    Define reasonable. Apple is a private company and shouldn't do the work of the govt. 
    numenorean
  • Reply 10 of 16
    I think Apple is doing the right thing here..but I must admit renaming the iPhone 7 to the Muhammed Seven seems questionalble...
    jungmark said:

    "If Apple can refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement, public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free," the filing reads. 

    Define reasonable. Apple is a private company and shouldn't do the work of the govt. 
    YOU ARE RIGHT... they also don't have to pay taxes either.. like most private companies.. go Apple..
  • Reply 11 of 16
    steven n. said:
    "If Apple can refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement, public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free," the filing reads.

    Encryption

    This debate is a defining moment in the tech industry and its impact will be felt for generations. It's implications don't just impact the US but the world and I don't think most people are looking at the long term impact this ruling will have.

    At the heart of this debate is if we have a right to security.  Not privacy as many have stated but security. In this case security, privacy and freedom line up and it is not the way the FBI wants it.

    Paper.

    There was a time when we would send mail from person to person using paper. Important documentation was printed out as needed and if we needed to destroy it, there was fire and shredders. NOTE: The government never made a shredding company design and invent an de-shredder. But then we started to shift to digital communications and the government started wetting its lips with the potential treasure trove.

    Why? Digital leaves finger prints everywhere it goes. When you send an email the email is routed from server to server to server leaving behind entire copies on computers all over the world. There are wonderful time stamps and trace routes on each copy and it is all in plain text. This is why Hillery's near exclusive use of a personal email for State Department business use is so troubling (and personally why she is unfit to be President). All of those emails are potentially deposited on servers all over the world from Russia to China to Mexico to the US. Email was a wonderful thing for surveillance and Text Messaging. OMG!!! It really became hard to shred documents. It became a feeding frenzy for the NSA and FBI.

    Enter the shredder: Encryption. Open sourced and available to the world for free.

    Many people think of Encryption as a safe but it isn't. It is a shredding/de-shredding technology. A public key is used to shred data into a billion trillion pieces for transmission (this can be from computer to computer or within a computer). This packet of shredded data can be deposited all over the internet and intercepted by anyone but it is completely unreadable. When it arrives at the intended recipient, a carefully guarded private key is used to de-shred it to usable form. If the private key is lost the document is forever shredded.

    Because of the power to the private key, it is important to protect it with multiple levels of security and these designs are hard to get right. In some cases, key pairs are created and destroyed several times a minute. Once a hole is found in the design, they are easily exploited and the encryption serves no purpose. If you engineer in a hole, you destroy the security for EVERYONE using it once the hole is discovered and they always are.

    Now this technology is ubiquitous in everything we do on the internet from messaging, searching, banking, finance, investments and commerce. It is the basis for our personal security. It hides our location from jealous ex-lovers. It hides our logins to our banks. It hides our credit card numbers on Amazon. Security, freedom and privacy line up. Even if you are doing nothing unethical or illegal, you have TONS to hide.

    It also creates a situation where the FBI's feeding frenzy is being placed on a serious diet and the DOJ is having serious issue with this. They call it "going dark" and they are looking for cases to force silicon valley to create de-shredders that can de-shred any document. Farook's iPhone is the perfect wedge. A home grown terror attack on US soil. Public sympathy like you can't believe. It is the wedge the DOJ is using to force the tech industry to allow surveillance on encryption. This is a line in the sand we can not cross as a planet.

    The Clipper Chip and a golden key.

    If you engineer in collisions into the shredding tech, these are now found quickly. A key like this will be worth 100's of millions of dollars and there will be a human somewhere motivated by greed. The NSA tried to create an encryption chip with Key Escrow called the Clipper Chip. It failed because it was hacked in months.

    With encryption EVERYONE is secure or NO ONE is secure there is no middle ground and there is no room for discussion. It is the math behind encryption. Again, there is NO room for discussion. There is no golden key and there is no magic wand capable of allowing surveillance on encrypted data. If a court precedent is set forcing US tech companies to write code to break their own security designs, it will do a few things:

    1) The tech industry will leave to off shore locations.

    2) People will loose faith in on-line commerce.

    3) People will be much less secure in their digital footprint.

    4) Billion's of people will be significantly less secure in their daily lives.

    Superbly put man!
  • Reply 12 of 16
    mrboba1mrboba1 Posts: 276member
    Is there anyone who you would trust less than the actual victims (and families) of an attack to think clearly about whether it is a good idea or not? Good lord, these people are hurting and just want answers, and in their grief cannot see beyond their loss.

    Way to tug on emotions rather than looking at facts, Gov.
    jony0
  • Reply 13 of 16
    Urei1620Urei1620 Posts: 88member
    jungmark said:

    "If Apple can refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement, public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free," the filing reads. 

    Define reasonable. Apple is a private company and shouldn't do the work of the govt. 
    Maybe the FBI should hire Carnegie Mellon U to hack the phone if they truly want the info, but we all know that the FBI wanted to use this case to set a precedence and coerce Apple into creating and giving them a backdoored iOS.
    edited March 2016
  • Reply 14 of 16
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Urei1620 said:
    jungmark said:

    "If Apple can refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement, public safety will suffer. Crimes will go unsolved and criminals will go free," the filing reads. 

    Define reasonable. Apple is a private company and shouldn't do the work of the govt. 
    Maybe the FBI should hire Carnegie Mellon U to hack the phone if they truly want the info, but we all know that the FBI wanted to use this case to set a precedence and coerce Apple into creating and giving them a backdoored iOS.


    Actually it is more than about Apple it is about any company. If the FBI win the case they can then compel any company to do similar things.

    So you have these families who are grieving their lost, and we have this idiots in law enforcement tell them Apple is keeping them from getting them answers to the question of Why this happen to their families. Does anyone believe the Police have these families best interest in mind. The fact the families are saying this is about a search warrant show they do not understand the case. The search warrant has been servers, but you can not give someone something you do not have. A search warrant can not require anyone to create what they already do not have.

    icoco3
  • Reply 15 of 16
    jfc1138jfc1138 Posts: 3,090member
    Apple can APPEAL a lawful court order because we, well, do NOT live in a tyrannical police state. Pesky Constitution of the United States eh?
    icoco3jony0
  • Reply 16 of 16
    metrixmetrix Posts: 256member
    I would think the software engineers at Apple put their lives in huge danger to write backdoor code because they instantly become desired by every rogue nation that wants to break into US military intelligence.
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