{"id":12245,"date":"2016-02-24T17:55:17","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T23:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=12245"},"modified":"2016-02-24T17:55:17","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T23:55:17","slug":"the-fbis-war-on-phones-is-bigger-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/02\/24\/the-fbis-war-on-phones-is-bigger-than-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"The FBI\u2019s War on Phones Is Bigger Than You Think"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Iphonew\"<\/p>\n

What a surprise, the Government Lied and are trying to access other phones not part of the investigation…I seem to remember Apple’s CEO warning about this, no? -SF<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s lawyers revealed the feds want access to about a dozen devices after San Bernardino.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

James Comey, the director of the FBI<\/span>, has insisted that his agency\u2019s ongoing conflict with Apple over a terrorist\u2019s phone is just that: a conflict over one phone. In\u00a0a letter<\/a>\u00a0posted to the Lawfare blog over the weekend, Comey called the legal issue at hand \u201cquite narrow,\u201d and said the FBI<\/span> sought only \u201climited\u201d help.\u00a0Experts say<\/a>\u00a0the small scope of the FBI<\/span>\u2019s ask bolsters its\u00a0case.<\/p>\n

But in fact, the iPhone 5c that belonged to Syed Farook\u2014one of the perpetrators of December\u2019s mass shooting in San Bernadino, California\u2014is only one of at least a dozen of Apple devices the FBI<\/span> is seeking to access, according to court documents unsealed\u00a0Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In a letter addressed to a federal judge in New York, a lawyer for Apple said that federal law enforcement has recently requested that the company access information on 12 other iOS devices. The list is likely not a complete tally of the FBI<\/span>\u2019s requests, and does not include similar requests from state or local\u00a0police.<\/p>\n

The letter was sent last week, just one day after a federal judge in California asked Apple to help the FBI<\/span> unlock Farook\u2019s iPhone. It was filed under seal but was released on\u00a0Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The letter was submitted to a federal court in Brooklyn, where Apple and the FBI<\/span> are facing off in a less dramatic version of the San Bernardino legal fight. In the Brooklyn case, the FBI<\/span> is asking Apple to extract data from a locked iPhone with an outdated operating system. In San Bernardino, the FBI<\/span> is asking Apple to modify the software in a newer iPhone in order to make it easier for agents to try to break in. Apple can technically fulfill both requests, but it has chosen to oppose\u00a0them.<\/p>\n

All 12 requests outlined in the letter were made under the All Writs Act, a 1789 law which has been used to compel a landline phone service provider to help the FBI<\/span> conduct phone taps. But the judge in the Brooklyn case has\u00a0expressed doubt<\/a>\u00a0that the same law would apply to locked\u00a0iPhones.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why this all matters: These 12 pending requests\u2014and probably many more that didn\u2019t make the list\u2014are a logjam waiting to break. If the federal judge in the San Bernardino case sides with the FBI<\/span>, it would be much easier for the judges overseeing these other, similar cases to compel Apple to\u00a0comply.<\/p>\n

Apple maintains that this case is not, in fact, about just one phone; it\u2019s about precedent. And if it can show that the government is using the San Bernardino case as a way to break through at least a dozen stalled cases elsewhere (even as the FBI<\/span> claims that it\u2019s not interested in setting a precedent), the judge might think twice before granting the FBI<\/span>\u2019s\u00a0wishes.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there are a whole lot more devices waiting in the wings, in the hands of state and local law enforcement. The Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. says he\u2019s asked Apple to unlock a whopping 175 iPhones. If the government wins in San Bernardino, Vance told PBS<\/span>\u2019s Charlie Rose recently, he would \u201cabsolutely\u201d try to get Apple to help get data off those devices,\u00a0too.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s likely the government chose to take the San Bernardino case public, instead of one of the other pending cases, because it can make a very strong argument for needing to get into a terrorist\u2019s iPhone. Comey wrote compellingly in his recent open letter that the FBI<\/span> is duty-bound to pursue every lead in a national-security investigation. Here, Apple is forced to take a position that obstructs a crucial-seeming probe, in contrast to the other cases, which did not involve terrorism charges, according to a\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The FBI<\/span> may be winning\u00a0the public-relations battle<\/a>\u00a0it\u2019s fighting with Apple alongside the ongoing legal conflicts. According to\u00a0a poll<\/a>\u00a0that Pew Research conducted over the weekend, most Americans think Apple should honor the FBI<\/span>\u2019s request to unlock Farook\u2019s iPhone. But now, Apple has a new arrow in its quiver: It can show that helping the FBI<\/span> in California will have far-reaching\u00a0consequences<\/p>\n

Read the Original Article at Defense One<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a surprise, the Government Lied and are trying to access other phones not part of the investigation…I seem to remember Apple’s CEO warning about this, no? -SF Apple\u2019s lawyers revealed the feds want access to about a dozen devices after San Bernardino. James Comey, the director of the FBI, has insisted that his agency\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3958,13,74,4379,1814,1928,1635,3553,65,3712],"tags":[4846,4847,1719,3083,4848,2992,2779],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}