Be the guy who rejects the overreaching demands of government? Sure thing! You're welcome to join me, if and when you come to your senses.
Posted on 02/29/2016 12:16:29 PM PST by Swordmaker
Tomorrow, Apple will make its case before Congress, as General Counsel Bruce Sewell gives testimony to the House Judiciary Committee at 1PM ET. It's Apple's first appearance before Congress since the company received an order to break security measures on a phone linked to the San Bernardino attacks, and Sewell may be facing a skeptical crowd. He'll be joined by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, who has been an outspoken critic of the company's encryption policies, as well as a number of House representatives who have been vocal supporters of the FBI's position in the past. FBI Director James Comey will also appear before the committee, although he will appear on a separate panel.
Sewell submitted his prepared opening statement to the panel earlier today, and it is reproduced in full below:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's my pleasure to appear before you and the Committee today on behalf of Apple. We appreciate your invitation and the opportunity to be part of the discussion on this important issue which centers on the civil liberties at the foundation of our country.
I want to repeat something we have said since the beginning — that the victims and families of the San Bernardino attacks have our deepest sympathies and we strongly agree that justice should be served. Apple has no sympathy for terrorists.
We have the utmost respect for law enforcement and share their goal of creating a safer world. We have a team of dedicated professionals that are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to assist law enforcement. When the FBI came to us in the immediate aftermath of the San Bernardino attacks, we gave all the information we had related to their investigation. And we went beyond that by making Apple engineers available to advise them on a number of additional investigative options.
But we now find ourselves at the center of an extraordinary circumstance. The FBI has asked a Court to order us to give them something we don’t have. To create an operating system that does not exist — because it would be too dangerous. They are asking for a backdoor into the iPhone — specifically to build a software tool that can break the encryption system which protects personal information on every iPhone.
As we have told them — and as we have told the American public — building that software tool would not affect just one iPhone. It would weaken the security for all of them. In fact, just last week Director Comey agreed that the FBI would likely use this precedent in other cases involving other phones. District Attorney Vance has also said he would absolutely plan to use this on over 175 phones. We can all agree this is not about access to just one iPhone.
The FBI is asking Apple to weaken the security of our products. Hackers and cyber criminals could use this to wreak havoc on our privacy and personal safety. It would set a dangerous precedent for government intrusion on the privacy and safety of its citizens.
Hundreds of millions of law-abiding people trust Apple’s products with the most intimate details of their daily lives – photos, private conversations, health data, financial accounts, and information about the user's location as well as the location of their friends and families. Some of you might have an iPhone in your pocket right now, and if you think about it, there's probably more information stored on that iPhone than a thief could steal by breaking into your house. The only way we know to protect that data is through strong encryption.
Every day, over a trillion transactions occur safely over the Internet as a result of encrypted communications. These range from online banking and credit card transactions to the exchange of healthcare records, ideas that will change the world for the better, and communications between loved ones. The US government has spent tens of millions of dollars through the Open Technology Fund and other US government programs to fund strong encryption. The Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, convened by President Obama, urged the US government to fully support and not in any way subvert, undermine, weaken, or make vulnerable generally available commercial software.
Encryption is a good thing, a necessary thing. We have been using it in our products for over a decade. As attacks on our customers’ data become increasingly sophisticated, the tools we use to defend against them must get stronger too. Weakening encryption will only hurt consumers and other well-meaning users who rely on companies like Apple to protect their personal information.
Today’s hearing is titled Balancing Americans’ Security and Privacy. We believe we can, and we must, have both. Protecting our data with encryption and other methods preserves our privacy and it keeps people safe.
The American people deserve an honest conversation around the important questions stemming from the FBI’s current demand:
Do we want to put a limit on the technology that protects our data, and therefore our privacy and our safety, in the face of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks? Should the FBI be allowed to stop Apple, or any company, from offering the American people the safest and most secure product it can make?
Should the FBI have the right to compel a company to produce a product it doesn't already make, to the FBI’s exact specifications and for the FBI’s use?
We believe that each of these questions deserves a healthy discussion, and any decision should be made after a thoughtful and honest consideration of the facts.
Most importantly, the decisions should be made by you and your colleagues as representatives of the people, rather than through a warrant request based on a 220 year- old-statute.
At Apple, we are ready to have this conversation. The feedback and support we're hearing indicate to us that the American people are ready, too.
We feel strongly that our customers, their families, their friends and their neighbors will be better protected from thieves and terrorists if we can offer the very best protections for their data. And at the same time, the freedoms and liberties we all cherish will be more secure.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to answering your questions.
Be the guy who rejects the overreaching demands of government? Sure thing! You're welcome to join me, if and when you come to your senses.
...providing the FBI with a signed iPhone Software file, recovery bundle or other Software image File (“SIF”) that can be loaded onto the SUBJECT DEVICE...Fortunately, the latest court precedent suggests that Apple's appeal to prevent this fiasco will be successful.
You are just going to insist on pushing the ad hominem, aren't you?
...but not here in the real world:
There is a difference between abuse and something done in accordance with the normal rule of law. I'm not sure your link is factual in all accounts, but even assuming it is, this does not justify a refusal to follow the normal rule of law in regular legal proceedings.
What needs to be done here is for the Abuse to be stopped, and the normal and usual legal processes to be implemented as they have existed since our government was founded.
Profit is great. It is how our society operates, but it's not okay to make profit "superior" to innocent lives. Or do you disagree?
Fortunately, it seems that you and other government apologists are the ones swimming against the tide this time:
Congress tells FBI that forcing Apple to unlock iPhones is "a fool's errand"The Justice Department is on a “fool’s errand” trying to force Apple to unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists, lawmakers told FBI director James Comey on Tuesday.
Lawmakers of both parties sharply challenged Comey as the House judiciary committee considered the FBI’s court order to unlock an iPhone owned by Syed Farook, who with his wife killed 14 people at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, in December and was killed by law enforcement.
Legislators repeatedly accused the Justice Department of overreaching its authority and undermining both privacy and cybersecurity....
It is a standard socialist slander that “greedy businessmen” put “profit” ahead of the “innocent lives” of the working class. I’m not seeing how your argument is any better than theirs.
The obvious answer is that the government's past behavior has made it impossible for any prudent person to trust them. It would be as stupid and reckless as putting Bill Clinton in charge of a college girls' dormitory.
Well exactly. That's why nobody wants them to have the ability to spy on people without a warrant. I really don't have a problem with them spying on people when they *DO* have a warrant, but warrant less searches are a no-no.
So long as the process requires them getting a warrant for Apple to break a phone, I am okay with it. As long as Apple maintains complete control of the process, all of Apple's concerns are also addressed.
Stopping the existing abuses is certainly necessary, but it is far from sufficient. Would you (for example) let an embezzler keep his job, with continued access to company funds, if he gave back the money he’d been caught stealing and promised not to do it again?
You see Apple as a mighty defender of virtue. I see them as a narcissistic self-interest driven pragmatist who will cave to the demands of barbarian nations because they will want to continue selling product in those barbarian nations. Google did it. Microsoft did it. I expect companies like Twitter and Facebook will do it, (if they haven't already caved) and Apple will do it too. (if they haven't already done so.)
As for "slipping." China is not "slipping", China is advancing their tech and economy more and more every day. Their market will make ours look weak.
The FBI says they did ask discretely, but Apple decided to stop helping them, even though they've done it many times before. The FBI says they were left with no choice but to pursue a court order.
Their statements ring more true to me than does Apple's statements, especially with all the fear mongering in which Apple has engaged.
> Apple is NOT going to leave so simple a method of getting around 256 bit AES ENCRYPTION which REQUIRES and MUST HAVE the input of a USER PASSCODE to DECIPHER the user data as just re-installing the operating system with the DFU mode.
Who said anything about getting around encryption? The Apple page instructs how the OS can be reinstalled without loss of data.
Pathetic.
Maybe so, but unless I see evidence to the contrary, i'll still trust his opinion more than that of the entire Gleichschaltung stampeded herd of the tech-industry. (Mostly located in Apple country)
Also your argument is a fallacy of the form "argumentum ad populum". It's basically saying that the guy in the picture I previously posted is wrong because everyone else disagrees with him.
Look, if you just want to make snide comments and call each other names, I can do that too, but I find it boring and will probably go do something else if that's what this has devolved into.
Sometimes the cops have a search warrant for some documents, but the owner burned them. Sometimes the cops have a search warrant for some documents, but the owner shredded them. Sometimes the cops have a search warrant for some documents, but the owner encrypted them. The cops are certainly welcome to make their best effort to read the ashes, reattach the confetti, or crack the encryption, but it's not up to anyone else to make it easier.
No, my argument was a form of “argument from authority”. It is not always reliable (particularly if the “authority” is an expert on the wrong subject for the case at hand), but it’s generally a good guide if you stay alert for the pitfalls.
> There’s a chance you can re-install the current operating system without erasing the user data, but YOU WILL HAVE TO STILL INPUT THE USER PASSCODE TO ACCESS IT. Got it now????
>
> However, any CHANGES to the firmware, or a reversion to an earlier iOS version WILL result in the data being erased and the only way to recover the data is from a BACKU
Don’t install an earlier version, install a “new” version which does not limit retries. Do this in a closed environment on a private network.
Your previous posts did not lead me to suspect that you found snideness and namecalling to be boring. I suppose it's possible that you have some sort of masochistic compulsion to bore yourself.
Yeah, well the entire world sided against Galileo, but guess who turned out to be right?
I'm not sure being right when everybody else is wrong is a common experience for you, but it has been such a regular occurrence throughout my life to the point where I just expect it anymore.
I am occasionally wrong, but what will convince me is a good argument backed up by a good set of facts, not the numbers of people who think things are a certain way. The Majority of people thought Barack Obama was a good idea, and myself and others thought it would be an epic disaster.
So which way did the "tech industry" go on the Barack Obama question?
They are not overreaching. Apple keeps asserting that they are, and people keep echoing and parroting that they are, but they are actually not overreaching.
"To the contrary, the Order allows Apple to retain custody of its sofware at all times, and it gives Apple flexibility in the manner in which it provides assistance. In fact, the software never has to come into the government's custody."
Read it yourself, and see if you don't find it reasonable.
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Sure thing! You're welcome to join me, if and when you come to your senses.
You are just following a popular movement. You aren't really weighing the various conflicting assertions, and reasoning it out, you are following the herd.
Apple is stampeding them, and therefore you.
You aren't swimming against the tide. You are going along with it.
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