Attorney General Eric Holder has a sad that he can't secretly pry inside your phone anymore.
No sympathy.
Joining a cry from law enforcement officials concerned about data encryption on Apple's newest operating system, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday that officers should not be blocked from the information they need to investigate a crime.
Apple's new iPhone 6, released this month, and Google's coming update of the Android smartphone have data encryption so sophisticated that only the user may unlock it. Even law enforcement officers with search warrants would not have access.
Remember—nothing is stopping the government from getting a court order compelling a person to surrender their phone. What is happening here is that they can't demand this information in secret by getting a third party to unlock it for them. They have to issue their demand directly to the owner of the device.
"It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy," Holder said in a speech before the Global Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Online.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
What, in our experience these past several years, would suggest that the government has any interest in properly protecting personal privacy? In fact, they've shown quite the opposite, refusing to even allow tech companies to announce when they've been compelled to turn personal information over to law enforcement.
More below the fold.
Let them bitch, and warn of mushroom clouds and child molestors and all the other alarmist rhetoric we're hearing from the law enforcement community. They can fight crime the proper way, and that means not having Apple or Google do their dirty work for them.
Justice Department officials said Holder is merely asking for cooperation from the companies at this time.
Wow, they really don't get it, do they? Apple and Google won't have the keys. Period. You can ask them nicely, pretty please, with a cherry on top, and those companies couldn't deliver the keys even if they wanted to. They've shifted the power back to the device owners.
Of course, you can also read that as a threat. But fuck those assholes. Let them try to pass a law invalidating these new security protocols. Among other things, it would destroy American technology companies' international business, since no one, not here, and certainly not outside our borders, is interested in making it easy for American law enforcement or intelligence agencies to secretly access their private personal business.
[FBI Director James] Comey said agents at the FBI have had conversations with Apple and Google to better understand the technology.
Not hard. People control access to their phones. Apple and Google don't. You want access, you get a court order compelling that individual to open it up. And if that's a problem, tough shit.
More here.