The Surveillance State is working towards ever more access to what was once considered private information. Using the excuse of “Terrorism” and ensuring the public’s safety to intrude upon the public’s privilege of privacy. In post 9-11 America you no longer have any reasonable expectation of privacy, according to the self proclaimed “emergency powers” of the U.S.Govt. And as long as (You) the public allows these abuses to occur it will only get worse,until the notion of Privacy is nothing more than a long forgotten memory.
The apparent battle between Apple and the FBI at least tells us that the post-Snowden privacy debate is still alive. The subject of the controversy is an iPhone belonging to one of the alleged San Bernardino shooters, and the FBI did not choose this case randomly. The F.B.I. are insistent that Apple should allow them access to the Iphone’s Data and private messages. The DOJ wants Apple to build a backdoor into the device so that it can bypass the company’s state of the art encryption apparatus and access information and evidence related to the case.At least, that’s the premise presented to the public. As we are learning, the FBI and the federal government have a far more comprehensive end-game in mind than merely bolstering the prosecution of this one case.
F.B.I. Director James Comey appears quite earnest about protecting Americans from the Evils of “Homegrown Terrorism’
“Fourteen people were slaughtered and many more had their lives and bodies ruined,” “We owe them a thorough and professional investigation under law.+
We simply want the chance, with a search warrant, to try to guess the terrorist’s passcode without the phone essentially self-destructing and without it taking a decade to guess correctly,”“That’s it. We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the land.”
Comey said the phone’s data might have information leading them to other terrorists, even though indications are that the two shooters were self-radicalized.
As the surveillance state was met with fierce resistance for trying to force companies to install “backdoors” to their encryption, it was looking for other ways to gain the access it desires.
A secret “decision memo” was recently leaked to the press which details a meeting of the National Security Council that took place last November. The meeting of senior officials provided a framework for attempts to work around the “backdoor” issue, and shows that agencies already possess a deep understanding of tech companies’ encryption.
However, what if this debate is actually a sideshow? What if the government already has the ability to hack into the iPhone? There is the matter,not widely reported in the media of the F.B.I. has already had partial access to the phone in question and had actually changed the password of the phones Icloud Data account.
According to N.S.A. whistleblower Edward Snowden, The F.B.I. already has other methods to access the info from the iphone, without forcing Apple to install a backdoor into the phone and thereby setting a dangerous precedent.
The problem is, the FBI has other means… They told the courts they didn’t, but they do,” Snowden said during a virtual talk hosted by Johns Hopkins University. “The FBI does not want to do this.”
Snowden tweeted last week that “crucial details [of the case] are being obscured by officials.” Specifically, he made the following trenchant points:
If the surveillance state is to have any hope of gaining their vaunted “backdoor” into the electronic devices of everyone, then preying on the fear of terrorism has the biggest chance of success.
If the FBI prevails in this case, the ramifications won’t be limited to smartphones. It will set a precedent for the government legally conscripting any and every entity they desire for the purposes of citizen surveillance and metadata collection.
