Posted on 10/19/2014 12:42:34 PM PDT by Kaslin
The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution is crystal clear in meaning.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
FBI Director, James Comey, an Obama appointment, does not give a damn what the Constitution says.
In a recent speech, Comey warns If Apple and Google Won't Decrypt Phones, We'll Force Them To
Everyone is stoked that the latest versions of iOS and Android will (finally) encrypt all the information on your smartphone by default. Except, of course, the FBI: Today, its director spent an hour attacking the companies and the very idea of encryption, even suggesting that Congress should pass a law banning the practice of default encryption.Safe That Cannot be Cracked
It's of course no secret that James Comey and the FBI hate the prospect of "going dark," the idea that law enforcement simply doesn't have the technical capability to track criminals (and the average person) because of all those goddamn apps, encryption, wifi network switching, and different carriers.
"Encryption isn’t just a technical feature; it’s a marketing pitch … it’s the equivalent of a closet that can’t be opened. A safe that can’t be cracked. And my question is, at what cost?" Comey said. "Both companies [Apple and Google] are run by good people, responding to what they perceive is a market demand. But the place they are leading us is one we shouldn’t go to without careful thought and debate."
yea though I walk through the Valley Of Obamaville”
It's not. In most cases, it doesn't matter how strong the encryption is because the idiot user neglected to securely delete the original documents after encrypting them or used his cat's name for the password or something. In the few cases where encryption is used correctly, it can still be overcome by planting key-capture software to get the password.
That gives the feds all the access they need to investigate actual suspects. It's too much work to snoop on everybody, which is what they want to do, Constitution or no Constitution.
The Feds got a specific warning about the Boston Marathon bombers, but didn't pay any attention. I'm convinced that their obsession with scooping up everybody's private information is actually making them LESS effective by distracting them from real danger signals.
Obviously, if the cops have a legitimate warrant, you can't refuse to let them in on the grounds they'll find something that will incriminate you. You can strictly limit their search to the parameters of the warrant. Those principles apply to both physical and electronic searches.
Any competent investigator is going to start by copying the encrypted data and working on the copy, in order to overcome that tactic.
The Supreme Court brought the constitutional right of personal privacy into the digital era Wednesday, ruling unanimously that police may not search a smartphone or similar device without a warrant from a judge....Until Wednesday, the court’s long-standing view was that police were free to search someone who was stopped on the street or in his car and put under arrest. Officers could check a suspect’s pockets and examine his possessions, including a wallet, purse and pockets.
The intention was to allow police to protect themselves by finding weapons. But they were also free to collect evidence, such as drugs, stolen goods or papers that might lead to other suspects.
This was known as the “search incident to arrest” rule, and it had been set out in 1973 by then-Justice William H. Rehnquist. A few years later, Roberts came to Washington to be a law clerk for Rehnquist, and in 2005, he succeeded him as chief justice.
In Wednesday’s opinion, Roberts said Rehnquist’s “categorical rule” for allowing the police to freely search “physical objects” did not make sense when those items were electronic devices....
Freedom. The Constitution.
He claims the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of fear and mistrust, so as a remedy he wants the government to have free access to all your stuff.
Does this FBI director like the cloud too? He can snoop all those databases at will.
Yes, it bothers many of us that those in public office selectively choose who will be allowed to break the law. And whose illegal conduct will be whitewashed and covered up. And how they entrap and wrongly punish others who have done no wrong. Laws are meaningless now. People should be secure against snooping by government, because government is corrupt.
Correct.
Apple has replaced the "previous privacy remarks" with the new sweeping statement that ALL data uploaded from customers' devices with passcodes are "already encrypted before Apple receives it." It is then anonymized and then broken into smaller packets, additionally 256 bit encrypted again, where it is stored for retrieval only by its owner. Even Apple cannot decrypt it to useable form. "Cops can still inhale your iCloud" but all they will get is undecypherable mixed up gobble-de-gook without your key that may be mixed with other users data encrypted with other keys.
I remember the early days of floppy discs on personal computers. People were pirating software by making copies. So creators were hiding sectors of data on hidden tracks not normally accessible by regular copy software. Can't do that with digital storage media where there are no tracks. Now one method is to bury data within other data, so when decrypted it looks ordinary; but the private stuff is hidden within the ordinary data with a second level of encryption.
I very much appreciate and support most of what the FBI does, but this sounds like a dictatorship not USA.
Perhaps if we can elect better politicians, we will get more respect for our rights?
You would think since practically everyone is online that software on CD/DVD could require an extra download for activation and every copy can only get one activation code or something.
Note that "call history" and "third-party app" data can be subpoenaed from carriers and the providers of the third-party app publishers, assuming the app uploads anything to the app's servers. Apple cannot prevent the authorities getting that.
When I said digital storage media, I should have clarified it by saying USB sticks, Solid-state drives and the like. CD/DVDs are similar to floppy discs in that you can have hidden tracks.
Let such a bill come to a vote, by all means.
But you have to have the passcode to gain access TO even copy the data from the device. . . otherwise ZAP. Apple has entangled the passcode with a hardware generated hash available only on and unique to each device. . . Good luck with that approach.
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