Posted on 02/24/2016 8:01:29 PM PST by Swordmaker
Maybe people should have to pass a background check before they can purchase an iphone.
Apparently they are as dangerous as those assault weapons we keep hearing about.
Are you REALLY this ignorant? Apple is not earning "tax free profits" and if you think they are you are falling for the LIBERAL propaganda from the DEMOCRATS.
Apple is either they largest or one of the two or three largest US tax payers of Corporate Income taxes according to the IRS depending on the tax year. In 2012, for example, Apple by far, paid more US Corporate Income Taxes than any other business, and in fact paid $1 out of every $40 of US Corporate Business Taxes collected that year. Apple's effective US Tax Rate normally averages around 27%. Alphabet/Google's US Tax Rate averages under 17%.
The money Apple has off-shore is not untaxed. It has already been taxed in the jurisdictions where it was earned. Apple has to keep it off-shore because the archaic US Tax laws make it only one of two nations on earth that tax the ALREADY income taxed profits earned off-shore when they are brought home. The other nation is a land-locked, African tyranny with zero international businesses. Our businesses and even our individuals when they bring their off-shore earnings home must pay a 35% TAX on top of the income tax they have ALREADY paid on those funds. These are like being forced to take a one-third cut of your SAVINGS to bring them into the United States. It's an insane practice that cripples our companies when they want to bring their own earned capital home.
Right now, Apple can tell China, for example, they cannot "Crack" the password on their devices. If the FBI forces Apple to crack the password for them, Apple would be forced to crack that same password for China, as well. There are FAR MORE ramifications for this than just this one case. . . Many of them international.
There are 800,000,000 people dependent on the STRONG security of Apple iPhones. Add in iPads and iPod touches, and it's ONE BILLION. Security is not just about law enforcement. It's about credit/debit card fraud. ApplePay is secure against such fraud. Allow this "Crack" to get into the wild, that's GONE!
This has very little to do with terrorism. Terrorists can and do use "Burner" phones. That is what the San Bernardino couple actually used. They both had two burner phones bought for a few bucks. They DESTROYED them before embarking on their shooting rampage for their Satanic Allah. They destroyed their computers, pulling the hard drives and smashing them separately (I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't pour fuel oil over them, as that is an advised method of dissolving the magnetic substrate). They then DUMPED the remains of these burner phones, the hard drives, and even the hulk of their destroyed computers in a lake. That's what the divers were looking for.
Why was this County owned iPhone 5C not destroyed? I suggest because there's not a damned thing on it that is worth finding. He probably used it only for work and used the burner phones for plotting, bad terrorist guy things. There is no way he'd put anything incriminating on a phone owned by his employer that he doesn't know whether or not they have access to data on. The number is their's not his. The emails are their's not his. Etc.
The other day, a caller on the Rush Limbaugh show said he worked on phones returned on exchanges for the carriers. He implied that even wiped iPhones still had user data on them, contacts, photos, notes, emails, etc. He did not actually say such a thing, but he said he had no problem getting around passcodes, which showed me he was NOT talking about iPhones.
It is well known that Android phones cannot be fully erased. . . But iPhones are easy to fully erase. Resetting an iPhone back to factory condition actually DOES erase all user data and leaves NOTHING behind. Nor can you "get around" the passcode as the caller implied. If the iPhone has not been unlocked before being traded in, it will be useless to a new buyer. It takes about three minutes to completely WIPE an Apple iPhone back to factory pristine blank condition.
What I am getting at here, is that it is entirely possible that this iPhone 5C has absolutely NOTHING on it. That it was not necessary to destroy it because 1) it was his work phone and he never used it for anything nefarious, and 2) just in case he had said something inadvertently while using it, it's trivial to completely erase it, and then put back his passcode.
For a terrorists who planned to never return, certain they were never going to need their phones again, so much so they destroyed their others and their computers, it is logical to think they would have also destroyed the data on the one they had left.
I heard that this iPhone was found in the car where they were shot. I suspect they may have kept this one, without data, to use as a GPS system for their getaway.
You do know that Terrorists usually use "burner" phones don't you? These are phones they can throw away at a moment's notice after smashing them. The San Bernardino terrorists were no different. They both had a burner phone which they carefully SMASHED, and along with their destroyed computers and separately destroyed hard drives, threw them in a lake. There are also numerous 256 bit AES encryption apps out there to hide their data for both JAILBROKEN iOS devices, Microsoft, and Android phones. Those could have unbreakable passcodes on them that NO ONE could break into so it really doesn't matter WHO builds the phones. It is the principle of personal privacy that counts here.
The FBI knows who was contacted on this iPhone, etc. The BURNER phones? They probably know not a thing about. Zip, nothing.
My thinking is that since this phone was his work phone, it is highly unlikely there is anything incriminating on it at all. My suspicion is that it is entirely BLANKED. Totally erasing an iPhone is a trivial thing to do. That's an impossible thing to do on the vast majority of Android devices. It takes only about three to five minutes to do on an iOS device. . . and the iPhone/iPad will be back to factory new blank condition with no remnants of the user's data left at all. Nothing recoverable.
Given that there was a time when land lines dominated our communication technology, even with "party" lines where several families shared a telephone line. Privacy and security were not an issue.
There is no excuse today to not support the FBI.
What’s surprising to me is all the people here and on cable that call themselves conservatives supporting the Constitution and the right to privacy (so many of whom rushed to Eddy Snowjob’s defense), are now the very people calling the loudest for government compliance as if the right of privacy they so strongly defended over there is invalid over here.
The current government considers us to be terrorists. Are you really so willing to let people like Obama and Loretta Lynch have complete access to all of your information?
It’s just flat-out wrong for the government to go to a company with a court order and say, “You work for us now.” For Apple, this order is not difficult to comply with. The problem is that if they do it, they’ll be avalanched with these court orders to hack phones. That’s not how it’s supposed to work with contractors, the FBI (Famous But Incompetent) is WAY out of line here.
It’s supposed to be that they advertise the service that they want publicly, companies that choose to do what they want bid on it, then the company selected gets the contract. It’s not supposed to be a situation where the government goes to a company and demanding that they work slave-labor with all kinds of threats of jail and exorbitant fines if they don’t comply. This is like being forced to quarter the King’s military troops, it’s a bunch of crap.
Maybe Apple should just say, “Yeah, we’ll do it—and it will cost you $10,000 per phone.” Problem with that is that the govt. would pay it and Apple would still be in the same predicament.
No joke. The government now has the right to march over to anybody they want and demand slave-labor out of them with threat of jail if they don’t comply? This is no different than being required to quarter troops during the American Revolution.
The reason Apple isn’t doing this is simple. If it were one phone, it probably wouldn’t be a big deal. The problem is that the minute they comply, they’ll be avalanched with these court orders and they’ll be a forced-employee of the US government. That is crap!
“This is no different than being required to quarter troops during the American Revolution.”
This is no different than being required to quarter British troops during the American Revolution.
There are many on FR who would have gladly complied and attacked those who wouild not, especially. for resons unknown. noobies.
I thought I’d seen everything when I saw so many of our rebellious youth hitting the streets and marching in favor of government subservience during during the whole Obamacare thing. Guess not.
I thought it was over when I saw the cities burning ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.