Top Obama Admin DOJ Official to Apple, Google: Encryption Will Lead to Dead Kids

Zenaan Harkness zen@freedbms.net
Thu Nov 20 22:18:08 PST 2014


http://www.dailytech.com/Top+Obama+Admin+DOJ+Official+to+Apple+Google+Encryption+Will+Lead+to+Dead+Kids/article36914.htm


Top Obama Admin DOJ Official to Apple, Google: Encryption Will Lead to Dead Kids
Jason Mick (Blog) - November 20, 2014 12:34 PM

Agency feels it's best to give up freedoms, privacy to "keep the kids
safe", Apple and Google say "yea, right"

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, James Michael Cole,
the Deputy Attorney General of the United States (DAG-US), last month
met with high-ranking Apple, Inc. (AAPL) executives to discuss their
plans to allows consumers to encrypt their personal data on their
smartphones.  During the meeting he expressed strong disdain for the
company's privacy protections and lofted a wild argument that his
critics complained was inflammatory hyperbole.


I. "Won't Somebody, PLEASE Think of the Children!"

The report states that DAG Cole, the second highest-ranking official
at the U.S. Department of Justice, claimed that children would die if
Apple carried out the scheme.

 James Cole
 Deputy AG James Cole claims encryption will result in children dying.
[Image Source: WND]

His argument reportedly boiled down to that law enforcement might be
able to find details in a missing child case on a suspect's phone, but
be stymied by encryption, leading to a delay in finding the child.
Such a delay, he argued could allow a child to die.

Apple executives weren't buying into the DOJ official's hypotheticals.
The WSJ report states:

The meeting last month ended in a standoff. Apple executives thought
the dead-child scenario was inflammatory. They told the government
officials law enforcement could obtain the same kind of information
elsewhere, including from operators of telecommunications networks and
from backup computers and other phones, according to the people who
attended.

Both Apple and Google Inc. (GOOG) in recent months adopted features
that allow users to fully encrypt their pictures, video, messages, and
other data on their mobile device.  As mentioned above, while the data
on the device is encrypted, data stored in the cloud by Apple or
Google is still vulnerable to court ordered data grabs.  Likewise,
data stored locally on the user's PC associated with the device may be
less secure, depending on their level of encryption on that computer.

Both Apple and Google have been very cooperative with detecting and
reporting child abuse material detected in their messaging and cloud
storage services.  In fact, they've been so proactive that they've
actually come under fire from some users who claim the companies
shouldn't be inspect user data for signs of child abuse.

 Android and iOS encryption
 Both Apple and Google have rejected requests by the federal
government to remove encryption from their consumer smartphone
platforms. [Image Source: Google/Apple]

Ironically, even as some users criticize Google and Apple for
"violating their privacy" by inspect the data users willingly give
them, federal law enforcement agency are attacking on a polar opposite
grounds, claiming Google and Apple aren't doing enough to assist law
enforcement.  Thus far the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's
director, James Brien Comey, Jr., has been the leading voice of
criticism against smartphone encryption.

In a recent interview, he admitted that the FBI had abused the
public's trust in the past with investigations against civil rights
activists and other abusive actions.  And he admitted that his agency
operates relatively non-transparently so the public has no real way of
knowing if those kinds of abuses have stopped.  But he argued that the
public should take the FBI's word that it's since improved.

 FBI director
 FBI Director James Comey claims encryption allows users to break the
law.  He wants the privacy protection banned from America. [Image
Source: AP]

Director Comey argued that by giving users tools to protect their
privacy, American tech firms would "allow people to place themselves
beyond the law."

Congress recently rejected Director Comey's calls for legislative
action banning consumer encryption.  They said the FBI Director's
requests were out of touch with reality and would allow Americans to
fall victim to criminals.  The majority in both the House and Senate
argued that banning encryption was overreaching and inappropriate.


II. 1984 In the Real World, Three Decades Later

This criticism was echoed by his colleague at Britain's Orwellian spy
agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), recently
condemned the privacy protections.  In a recent op-ed in The Financial
Times (UK), he wrote:

[Google and Apple's smartphone platforms] have become the
command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals,
who find their services as transformational as the rest of us.

The GCHQ works hand-in-hand with the U.S. National Security Agency
(NSA) to spy on hundreds of millions of law abiding citizens in the
U.S. and Britain, saddling taxpayers with annual costs in the tens of
billions of dollars to finance this unprecedented police state.  The
NSA and GCHQ have reportedly worked together to sabotage encryption
standards.  While that expensive effort damages both countries'
national security by creating vulnerabilities that can be exploited by
criminals or hostile nation states, the intelligence agencies feel it
is worth it, if citizens can be stripped of protections and monitored
at all times.

The DOJ, for its part, seemed to take a more ambiguous stance.
Departing Attorney General Eric Holder in a recent speech seemed at
times to praise the American tech leaders, and at other times to come
close to echoing Director Comey's stern commentary.  Behind closed
doors, though, the Justice Department's comments were apparently less
vague.

Apple and Google show little signs of budging on the issue, though.
At an October global technology conference sponsored by The Wall
Street Journal, Apple CEO Timothy Cook stated:

Look, if law enforcement wants something, they should go to the user
and get it.  It’s not for me to do that.

American business leaders complain that the government's overreaching
surveillance efforts are damaging their reputation, particularly
overseas, where many regions are boycotting American tech products due
to security concerns.


III. AT&T Files Suit to Block "Enormous" Volume of Data Request
Targeting Law-Abiding Americans

Even at the telecom level, there's increasing pushback, as companies
like AT&T, Inc. (T) believe that mass surveillance programs are
damaging consumer confidence.  AT&T on Monday filed an appeal seeking
to stop the current volume of requests for customer data and phone
records under the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism Act).

 Obama spying
 Under the last two presidents, the federal government has used
techniques borrowed from imperialist Britain to spy on hundreds of
millions of law-abiding Americans. [Image Source: Reuters]

Due to the secrecy provisions in the act, AT&T cannot say precisely
how many requests it has received, but reportedly the NSA and other
agencies are collecting data on hundreds of millions of Americans
using PATRIOT Act general warrants issued by the FISA court.  These
general warrants are a wholly new development in the American legal
system, that borrow from similar provisions the imperial British used
in the mid-1700s in an attempt to suppress colonial freedoms.

AT&T says these general warrants and the data grabs they order are
poorly justified judicially using 1970s Supreme Court decision
regarding landline telephones.  They say those decisions "apply
poorly" to the world of modern digital communications, a world in
which many more Americans are connected to communications networks and
a world in which data is far easier to grab in bulk.  AT&T could only
legally say that the volume of consumer request by the American
federal government was "enormous".

 AT&T Data Wide
 [Image Source: AT&T/CNET]

AT&T's bid to block the American government from spying on millions of
law-abiding citizens will be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, Georgia.  In the meantime, the conflict
will continue to play out on a different level as smartphone platform
providers battle their country's government over whether Americans
have the right to privacy.


Source: WSJ
http://online.wsj.com/articles/apple-and-others-encrypt-phones-fueling-government-standoff-1416367801




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