seneca72

I thought the US had separation of powers such that Law and Executive were independent of each other.  If so why is the Supreme Court asking the opinion of the President as to whether it should hear a case?   Surely it either should or shouldn't based on a matter of law? 

Viewed from this side of the pond it looks a little odd.

Are these usable with TB2, albeit with an adaptor?  I have a MB Air with TB2 and would dearly like one of these in advance of my purchase of one of the new MacBook Pros.  

foggyhill said:

Bullshit Spotify, see you in court since that's seems were you want to go now...  This is GRANDSTANDING.

Haven't you noticed there's a Presidential election coming up.  Sen Warren has been making noises about Apple and monopolistic practices, this is simply Spotify jumping onto the bandwagon.

In the US you do at least have a written Constitution.  In the UK we don't, we have what is regarded as an unwritten Constitution which gives Parliament absolute sovereignty.  It's effectively the Divine Right of Kings enshrined in an elected Parliament with no separation of powers.

The end result gives the government of the day, acting with a small Parliamentary majority the power to push legislation like the so-called 'snooper's charter'  aka the Investigatory Powers Bill.  Amongst other stuff it contains powers which could compel Apple to do what they are fighting in the US.

Read this.  It will give the UK Government powers that the FBI dream of. 

Urei1620 said:

Only in the US because the FBI wants to spy on all of us.

If only.  In the UK the Home Secretary has just published a revised draft of the Investigatory Powers Bill, aka 'the Snoopers Charter"  There's a brief explanation of it here:

The article points out that in the previous version of the Bill.......

• There was language suggesting that tech firms could be forced to break the encryption on messages sent using their technology – a requirement which could force companies like Apple and Facebook, which offer encrypted messaging apps, to choose between operating in Britain or breaking their own messaging apps on an international scale.

The new version of the bill does soften that last requirement, just. It offers a “pragmatic approach” on the part of the government, and makes clear that no company will be required to remove encryption of their own services if it is not technically feasible. The definition of what, exactly, constitutes technical feasibility is, however, left as an exercise for the reader – and for a lot of lawyers in the future.

As the article says, the last part has been watered down a little but I've no doubt the UK Government is looking at what happens with Apple v FBI.  If that goes in the FBI's favour, then expect the UK Government to be making sure Apple is kept very busy unlocking iPhones.  

It's the type of bulk surveillance the Stasi could only have dreamed of and unlike the US, the UK does not have the benefit of a written Constitution to protect us.  The only possibility is that it conflicts with European Human Rights law.  Ironic that after a World War in which two Countries fought against this sort of thing our liberties are so casually given away.  Even more so if the UK looks to the EU to protect us under human rights law.