Farook’s Phone: The FBI versus Apple (and Everyone Else)

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to know what’s on Syed Farook’s Apple iPhone. As the old saying goes, people in hell want icewater too.

The San Bernardino killer’s phone is encrypted. More than ten attempts to guess the correct six-digit pass code (out of a million possibilities) will result in destruction of all data on the phone. They’re stuck. At least they say they are (I’m skeptical). They want Apple to help.

Forcing Apple to do so would be a simple matter of issuing a subpoena if the company had the information in question, but it doesn’t. So the FBI wants Apple to create an entirely new version of its operating system that allows them to bypass the ten-try limit. And  a federal judge, citing an 18th century law called the All Writs Act, has ordered Apple to just that.

As I write this, Apple has, quite reasonably, refused the demand. Presumably there’s a court battle in the offing.

Apple should win in the courts, and in any event what the FBI is demanding should be impossible. If what the FBI is demanding isn’t impossible on this generation of iPhones, Apple should be working overtime on a system update that MAKES it impossible , just in case the courts side with the FBI.

This is not about Syed Farook, nor is it the equivalent of a demand to hand over the key to an apartment because the cops have a search warrant. This is about you, and it’s the equivalent of a demand to hand over the keys to 700 million apartments just in case the cops ever take a notion to rummage around in your closet.

Am I worried? No, and yes.

No, because if Apple folds and does the FBI’s will, people who value their privacy will simply switch to devices and/or third party encryption software that neither the FBI nor Apple can compromise in that particular way.

Yes, because this is a red line in terms of precedent. The US government has been at war on the rights and the privacy of every phone and computer user in the world for decades, but this is an open declaration of that war, the moment when the gloves come off.

The state doesn’t own your phone. The state doesn’t own your data. The state doesn’t own YOU. Time to put the tyrants on notice: We’re all out of icewater, fellas.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Election 2016: The Courtpocalypse and How to Delay It

English: President Barack Obama and Vice Presi...
English: President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden with the members of the Supreme Court and retiring justice David Souter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Presidential election campaigns tend to follow a predictable issues timetable, but certain events can upset that timetable in a big way. The death of US Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia is precisely such an event, and its consequences will be felt in November.

By the time Scalia’s body reached the funeral home, US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had already handed Democrats a great talking point and turnout motivator with his announcement that he intends to put off Senate confirmation of any replacement for Scalia for a full year, until a new president has been elected and sworn in.

The usual tactical approach when a president of one party nominates a candidate for approval by a Senate of the other party is basically brute obstructionism — dragging out the committee investigations, perhaps pushing back with the discovery or manufacture of scandals, and so on. McConnell could have almost certainly pulled that off. There would have been grumbling, but heck, there’s always grumbling.

Alternatively, a “consensus” appointee acceptable to both sides of the aisle might be allowed to run the gauntlet. In this case, the likely pick would be DC Court of Appeals judge Srikanth Srinivasan, who clerked for “conservative” justice Sandra Day O’Connor, worked in the Solicitor General’s office during the Bush administration, and was confirmed by a 97-0 Senate vote when Obama appointed him to his current post.

Instead, McConnell laid out an entirely new doctrine: When the Senate doesn’t like the sitting president, he says, it will just hold off on confirming Supreme Court appointments until it gets a president it DOES like.

Why is that such a big deal? Because the implications stretch far beyond the replacement of Scalia.

At least three more SCOTUS justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer — are, as was Scalia, in their late 70s or early 80s. Along with Scalia, they cover the whole range from “liberal” to “conservative.” And like Scalia, there’s every reason to believe that they will each retire or die during the next presidential term.

The Supreme Court is soon to be re-made in a big way, almost certainly altering the “liberal/conservative” balance. Scalia’s death puts that re-making front and center in the presidential race.

In a normal election year, presidential primary candidates talk to their parties’ “bases” about appointing hardcore conservative or liberal justices. Then during the general campaign they move toward the center, avoid ideology, and claim their only concern is finding  “qualified” justices. Scalia’s death and McConnell’s declaration of war on the confirmation process have the effect of keeping everyone in their initial corners for the long haul. If you worry about polarization in American politics, welcome to the Courtpocalypse.

But let me suggest a grand bargain to defuse the situation. Congress has changed the size of the Supreme Court before. Why not pass legislation reducing the number of justices to seven, contingent upon Ginsburg agreeing to retire? That would preserve the balance and put the whole question off. For a little while, anyway.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Just Say No to Draft Registration for Women — and Men

Congressman Alexander Pirnie (R-NY) drawing th...
Congressman Alexander Pirnie (R-NY) drawing the first capsule for the Selective Service draft, Dec 1, 1969 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Testifying before the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee in early February, Generals Mark A. Milley (the US Army’s chief of staff) and Robert B. Neller (commandant of the US Marine Corps) endorsed extending mandatory Selective Service registration to women. Because, you know, equality.

I have a better idea. It’s time to end draft registration for everyone. Because, you know, freedom.

The US hasn’t involuntarily inducted men into military service since 1973, but reinstated mandatory registration in 1980. Ever since, the shadow of legal slavery has loomed over the lives of American males aged 18 through 26.

Yes, slavery. There’s no other way to describe requiring someone to work for you whether he (or she) wants to or not. Conscription is an indefensible moral abomination, and would be even if it didn’t come with the risk of violent death attached.

The draft, and mandatory registration for it, are also just flat stupid.

Who am I to say this? I’m a former Marine infantry NCO (1984-1995, honorable discharge) who served in Desert Storm. I’m also a former Selective Service System board member (appointed by president George W. Bush in 2004 to a 20-year term; I resigned after eight years when I moved out of my local board’s area).

Since the 1970s, US military doctrine has successfully transitioned. Instead of losing wars by throwing large numbers of minimally trained warm bodies into ground combat (e.g. Korea and Vietnam), today’s military wins wars with superior technology (yes, it loses post-war occupation/insurgency scenarios, but the draft wouldn’t fix that). Returning to the draft would be like trading in a Tesla for a Model T.

Furthermore, wars that don’t enjoy broad support from the people who have to fight them — support involving walks down to the recruitment office to enlist — are wars that shouldn’t be fought and are already lost.

The Selective Service System isn’t really a budget buster. It runs on $25 million a year or so, chump change by comparison to most government programs, with a few hundred paid employees and a few thousand volunteer board appointees.

But once again, the draft is stupid and evil, as is maintaining mandatory registration. Why spend $25 million a year on something that’s stupid and evil? And why double the idiocy and the immorality by expanding its reach to women?

Let’s end this draft nonsense, immediately and permanently.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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