Re:FBI Director Comments on San Bernardino Matter
by zaroth on Monday February 22, 2016 @02:01AM
(#11149069)
It is not a matter of trust. People should never simply trust their Government, rather, Government must be accountable to the People. This particular government has not merely done "extremely questionable" things, they have knowingly and willingly broken the law and violated the privacy of just about every American because they believed the means justified the ends.
Of course encryption will obstruct justice in some cases. The same applies equally to the 4th amendment. Sometimes criminals will escape justice because the means to identify them are simply not reasonable. Obstructing justice is not always considered a bad thing. Where we draw the line is crucially important.
The law demands that the particulars of the crime are irrelevant. We must accept that whatever capability we give police can be deployed, with probable cause, in any criminal investigation. So I'll completely ignore your hypothetical case. If bypassing encryption is possible, then bypassing encryption becomes routine. Apple was routinely tasked under the AWA to assist in recovering phone data prior to them deploying encryption which they believed they could not crack.
Worse still is the fact that all police powers will be, at times, abused by the police. So another important question is are you comfortable with this capability being used disproportionately against the poor and marginalized, being used to harass and intimidate, and being used to suppress political dissent?
I believe the police must be capable of working with some limitations on their ability to access our personal electronic devices. Compelling manufacturers to create backdoors in our devices to bypass their security might help the police solve cases, but it would do at an unacceptable risk to the security and privacy of everyone who uses those devices. Generally available and widely usable encryption is a vital national interest. It is the linchpin enabling trillions of dollars of electronic commerce. Even if you dilude yourself into thinking the backdoor would only be lawfully accessed, its mere existence would inflict real economic damage by furthering global distrust of American technology. And it would set the stage for even more troubling backdoors in the future, because the All Writs Act is the wrong legal framework for them to get it.
Under the AWA, how is compelling the creation of this backdoor any different from compelling creation of any software which might produce evidence of co-conspirators? If tomorrow the FBI wants access to an iPhone 6s's camera and microphone, or the ability to remotely download the phone's contents? What if the FBI needs Mozilla to install a backdoor in the Tor Browser Bundle? How can the AWA grant one backdoor and not the other?
Of course encryption will obstruct justice in some cases. The same applies equally to the 4th amendment. Sometimes criminals will escape justice because the means to identify them are simply not reasonable. Obstructing justice is not always considered a bad thing. Where we draw the line is crucially important.
The law demands that the particulars of the crime are irrelevant. We must accept that whatever capability we give police can be deployed, with probable cause, in any criminal investigation. So I'll completely ignore your hypothetical case. If bypassing encryption is possible, then bypassing encryption becomes routine. Apple was routinely tasked under the AWA to assist in recovering phone data prior to them deploying encryption which they believed they could not crack.
Worse still is the fact that all police powers will be, at times, abused by the police. So another important question is are you comfortable with this capability being used disproportionately against the poor and marginalized, being used to harass and intimidate, and being used to suppress political dissent?
I believe the police must be capable of working with some limitations on their ability to access our personal electronic devices. Compelling manufacturers to create backdoors in our devices to bypass their security might help the police solve cases, but it would do at an unacceptable risk to the security and privacy of everyone who uses those devices. Generally available and widely usable encryption is a vital national interest. It is the linchpin enabling trillions of dollars of electronic commerce. Even if you dilude yourself into thinking the backdoor would only be lawfully accessed, its mere existence would inflict real economic damage by furthering global distrust of American technology. And it would set the stage for even more troubling backdoors in the future, because the All Writs Act is the wrong legal framework for them to get it.
Under the AWA, how is compelling the creation of this backdoor any different from compelling creation of any software which might produce evidence of co-conspirators? If tomorrow the FBI wants access to an iPhone 6s's camera and microphone, or the ability to remotely download the phone's contents? What if the FBI needs Mozilla to install a backdoor in the Tor Browser Bundle? How can the AWA grant one backdoor and not the other?