On Apple And The Department of Justice
I was listening to the radio this morning, as I frequently do, and NPR was playing an interview with CIA Director John Brennan. Brennan was discussing the current kerfuffle between Apple and the Department of Justice, who is attempting to force Apple to unlock a dead person’s iPhone. This story would be of little interest, and would be counted as a fairly mundane event (especially since September 2001, where the Government claimed tremendous powers to curtail Americans’ privacy, ostensibly in the name of fighting terror, but actually in the name of establishing an all-encompassing surveillance state in the US) if it had not been about an ongoing investigation of one of the few cases of domestic terrorism since 9/11- the San Bernardino mass shooting and its supposed link to Daesh. Despite the points made by the Government, however, the double-standard that the Government maintains with regard to information security, privacy and secrecy leads me to side with a huge multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporation against the State. The fact that the Government demands unlimited access to individuals’ information, while refusing individuals unlimited access to even mere historical facts where those facts may be inconvenient to the Government in maintaining the illusion that it only ever does good and never does illegal things, forces me to to argue that Apple should refuse, forever, to give the Government what it wants. And no government argument to the contrary, no matter how pleading it is for the need to maintain security against terror and foreign enemies, can dissuade me, until they themselves are as forthcoming with their secret information as they insist we all should be.
The Debate
The facts of the dispute are as such: The Department of Justice have asked Apple to develop software to unlock the iPhone of the individual who was involved in the shooting. They apparently believe that with the data, they can demonstrate that the person was working with the terror group, thus proving the case that they can’t make solidly otherwise. They know the information is there, they just don’t have it in hand, and cannot therefore say definitively that the individual was tied to Daesh, and without that link, they cannot definitively say that Daesh has attacked the US. The Department of Justice and the FBI are joined by family members and loved ones of the victims of the attack, who also want Apple to unlock the iPhone and discover the treasure trove of grisly little connections that it could possibly yield, so apparently, they can get “closure”.
For Apple’s Part, they wish to NOT create the software which would allow them to open the iPhone, because, as they say: 1) Creating the software would compromise data security and leave all iPhones open to attack by hackers and foreign governments, and, more importantly, 2) The Government can not be trusted to use the software “just once” as they claim, given its apparent zealotry in the cause of learning all there is to know about all of us at all times. Essentially, Apple is taking the position of “Defender of Privacy”.
Apple’s decision is apparently not the preferred position of the majority of Americans. Pew has discovered that more Americans side with The Department of Justice than with Apple, but this is not surprising. In the name of “security” most Americans thought that the US has not done “enough” to protect us from terrorists, suggesting that the public will still tolerate more domestic surveillance, and this attitude has held fairly constant through the entire 2000s and 2010s, with the exception of the year or so around the Snowden Leaks. Clearly the spooks in the Security apparatus in the US have the upper hand in the court of public opinion, and Apple may end up unlocking the iPhone anyway.
And yet, I am forced to side with a Major Capitalist Firm
Now- normally, I would side with the Government against a corporation. Anytime the Government is able to compel a corporation to do something against its interests, I tend to be supportive of this. It’s just a matter of ideology on my part: I am opposed to the notion of a multi-billion dollar company presuming that it is above the law of the country, in anything. But this particular case has me rethinking that blanket approval of compulsion of corporations. It’s not really for the reasons that Apple cites, either.
I really don’t care what Apple’s culture of privacy is- this is not a problem when you consider that if I really want to encrypt my messages, and Apple lets it be known that my data will no longer be safe, I will simply use the wonderful app known as Wickr, which employs AES256 encryption that will not be broken unless I want it to be broken, or if the Government feels particularly feisty and forces me to hand over public and private keys but I still absolutely positively need to pass secret information to my friends, I will begin to send messages using One Time Pad and utilize atmospheric randomness found at random.org, and the Government can go to hell. Nothing I do online rises to the level of OTP secrecy, but nonetheless, Apple’s corporate dilemma here doesn’t trouble me in the least.
The reason I have to side with Apple in this issue is because of the arrogance of the Government. What galls me is the double standard the US Government practices with regard to information: We are required to more or less hand over any and all of our information, and if we opt not to, the companies we utilize to help us communicate with one another can be either forced, or in many cases, simply asked, to hand it over for us, without our consent or knowledge. And yet, when we go to get evidence from the US government which would help us make the case about wrongdoings or illegal activities carried out by the US government in “our name” we are blocked, thwarted, and stonewalled. This double standard alone forces me to agree that Apple should refuse, forever to give the US Government any way of acquiring data on that phone, and I would consider buying stock in the company (AAPL) just to help it pay its contempt fees!
The CIA director said this to NPR this morning, to describe a justification that the government might use to persuade, not Apple, but the American Public to support the government’s case against Apple:
“What would people say if a bank had a safe-deposit box, or a storage company had a storage bin, that individuals could use and access and store things, but the government was not going to be able to have any access to those environments? And so criminals, terrorists, whatever, could use it. So what is it about electronic communications that makes it unique in terms of it not being allowed to be accessed by the government when, again, the law, the courts, say that the government should have access to it? …I think that the FBI clearly has a legitimate basis to try to understand what is on a phone that is part of a very active investigation; again, consistent with what their responsibilities and authorities are.”
Implicit in this statement is a fairly widely-presumed belief that there is nothing which should be off limits from Government surveillance. I suppose, given the Pew results, the majority of Americans agree.
The Government’s Double-Standard on Secrecy and Privacy
But what about the things that the Government does? If we give the government unlimited powers to investigate whatever they deem necessary, who oversees them? In fact, it is assumed that they will police themselves and not do anything illegal. And yet- we know that they do all the time. The Wikileaks and Snowden leaks, while controversial, nonetheless laid bare Washington’s worst kept secret- Everyone knows our government is involved in dastardly things and has been spying on us for years, but as long as they maintain deniability, we can all go to sleep at night pretending that they are always operating fully within the law, and always in the interest of the American public.
The US Government expects Apple to hand over the evidence that it knows is on the phone to help it make its case. But what happens when the people need to make a case against the US government? For example: what if I, as a researcher, need to find evidence that the US assisted in the overthrow of foreign Governments in Latin America during the Cold War? Well- I must either go beg the US government for the documents through FOIA (a process that they control and which the court can refuse, but which certainly produce heavily redacted documents with relevant data blacked out) like the National Security Archive at George Washington University does, or I can always look online at the Foreign Relations of the US website, maintained by the US State Department.
Suppose, for example, I was following the story of US covert action against the Administration of Juan Torres of Bolivia, and I was reading the documents, one after the next, about mounting tensions, US contingency plans, opposition assessments and so forth. And, as a student of History, I know that the coup which overthrew Torres occurred on August 23–24, 1971. I look in the FRUS site and see: “Ah Ha! There is the document, #108, dated 24 August, 1971, and is listed as a memo from the ‘Head of the CIA, Richard Helms,’ to the ‘President of the United States Richard Nixon’. Here is the PROOF that the US was behind the coup. Let’s see what it says!” I may click the hyperlink, which should take me to the transcript of the document itself. And it says: “[ 1 page not declassified ]“ And that’s all the Government gives me, who, as a researcher, have a legitimate interest in the historical evidence that the US government deliberately violated the sovereignty of Bolivia and possibly acted in contravention to US law.
The Government of the US has decided that I DON’T actually have a legitimate interest in discovering the illegal actions of our government. In other words, I am not allowed to have evidence that my Government violated the law, but they claim to have the right to break into a phone to potentially find evidence against me or any other citizen. I am not allowed to prosecute them in the court of public opinion by providing the irrefutable evidence of their misdeeds, but they claim to have that right with regard to me, or any other citizen of the United States. This is what frustrates me about this entire affair. My government is supposed to be accountable to me, as a citizen. And yet they maintain the right to keep evidence of their own potential violation of US laws a secret, behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy, still, nearly 45 years after the potential crime was possibly committed. We all know what that document says. We all know the evidence is there, and yet they claim the privilege of not allowing me, a researcher, an academic, and a citizen to have that evidence. And the people I would appeal are part of the system whose interest it is to deny me that information. And yet, they can acquire whatever they like about me, for whatever reason, or no reason at all.There is a tremendous mismatch of power here, and at the end of the day, this is what it is all about- the abuse and imbalance of power between the US Government and the citizens of this country. Our Government may claim that it is their job to maintain security in this country. But I claim that, as a citizen, it is my responsibility to ensure that my government does not act illegally in my name. And I am denied the most basic tools of discovery. At the end of the day, the only thing I have against the encroachment of an overzealous and hypocritical government is my privacy. And soon the only thing I will be able to trust to pass secret messages to my friends like I want to is the One Time Pad.
No DATA for DOJ!
As long as I am denied the tools I need to do my job and call my government on the carpet for their potentially illegal behavior overseas and at home, I support Apple’s denial of the tools to break into the iPhone. I suppose it won’t be long before some hacker reverse engineers Apple’s technology- it operates the same for everyone, so all they would need is a iPhone with iOS 8 on it. And Apple has already developed the technology for other versions of the iOS- they have already retrieved data for the Feds a number of times in the past from older versions of iOS. So they know there is a way. It is only a matter of time before someone discovers that way and then hands the info to the Government. But as long as the Federal Government maintains prerogative against the legitimate interests of the citizenry to know what sort of questionable and potentially illegal activities it is (or was, 45 years ago) up to, I support thwarting the Government whenever possible.
(With conceit, that I would ever be interrogated by the Feds for some reason, I’ll add:) And if the Government wants my data, I’ll encode it ALL in One time Pad before I hand it over to them. Then I’ll transcribe it all for them in strings of 2 digit numbers, in my own little version of Document 108: “1 Page not declassified.” And the government can get a taste of their own medicine.
