Apple accuses FBI of violating constitutional rights in iPhone battle

[Little Tich]

Source: The Guardian

FBI’s ‘unprecedented’ request violates free speech law, Apple argues in first legal response to order that it must provide access to San Bernardino shooter’s phone

Apple’s lawyers believe forcing America’s largest company to help the government crack open one of its iPhones would violate the US constitution and be a misinterpretation of a 227-year-old law.

The 36-page legal brief, submitted on 25 February, is Apple’s first formal rebuttal to a court order to write and sign software that would make it easier for investigators to open a phone used by San Bernardino gunman Syed Farook, who, with his wife Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 and wounded 22 on 2 December.

The tech firm’s attorneys argue the government seeks “a dangerous power that Congress and the American people have withheld: the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe.”

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/25/apple-fbi-iphone-encryption-request-response

[rpannier]

1. How pre-9/11 of Apple

Don't they know that 9/11 changed all that
You don't even have the right to keep silent w/o it meaning something nefarious

[groundloop]

2. Violates Free Speech????

I can envision several legal arguments against helping the FBI gain access to that phone, but 'freedom of speech' isn't one of them.

[branford]

4. The FBI is demanding Apple write new code to disable securities features on the phone.

The act of writing code has been held as creative expression within the purview of the First Amendment.

http://www.wired.com/2016/02/apple-may-use-first-amendment-defense-fbi-case-just-might-work/

[hueymahl]

5. Correct. And being compelled to speak is the same as being prevented from speaking.

Both are reviewed with "strict scrutiny" and require a compelling governmental interest that cannot be satisfied in a manner that does not infringe on speech.

Here, it fails the first test because the government has no compelling interest to look at the phone. They don't need it for the prosecution of the case and they have no idea if they would find anything that would prevent a specific terrorist act. It is purely a fishing expedition and a trojan horse to get access to more cell phones.

[randome]

11. They should never have put that protection in in the first place.

They knew there would be public safety issues but they chose market share over that. Law enforcement agencies warned them. It's their own fault.

It's like someone throwing a filing cabinet into the ocean and then saying, "Hey, I can't get to it. Too bad!"
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers, it's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

[Major Hogwash]

3. Patriot Act.

Parkay.

[cstanleytech]

6. Dont care for Apple as a company but I support them in this as the court was stupid as shit

to essentially order them to break their own security which is what the courts asking them to do and it would be suicide for the company to do this as well because no one would trust their products and for good reason.

[Igel]

7. Constitutional rights apply to people.

For rights to apply to it, then we agree: Apple's a corporate person.

[cstanleytech]

8. No, they arent people but the corporations do have some limited rights and

trying to force Apple to break its own product would destroy them because like I said no one would trust their products and for good reason.

[cascadiance]

10. This is what I worry about with efforts to overturn corporate personhood which I DO want to happen!

Is that so many "corporate persons" like Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. will throw up their hands and say "They took my rights away, I can no longer protect the data *I* have for subscribers." They will want to try and claim that they've been able to defend our privacy by having some form of "proxy" ownership over the data that is housed on either their servers (Google, Facebook) or on "their" devices like Iphones, etc.

Of course there is legal precedent out there already for virtual ownership of data on devices in other people's possession and that is copyright law, which is enforced because it benefits the wealthy copyright owners, not just average people. But we can use that as a basis to claim that with OUR data being housed in Iphones or on these servers, that we have the right to control how it is being used, just as copyright holders have the rights currently to control how music or movie files are used, etc. too.

But this needs to be thought out ahead of time before we might try to pass laws with a new president and perhaps a new congress, and a new SCOTUS majority in 2017 that might fix corporate personhood laws. We need to make sure that we establish useful laws for virtual ownership of private data on other machines not located physically on our property.

This situation with the Iphone in this case could be the court case that goes to the Supreme Court (or try to without a majority now) to establish such precedent in the future.

[rladdi]

9. All the users of Apple need to rethink if they want to continue to make Apple the multi billion

company that it is. The world has other product selections that work as well as Apple, but maybe not as connected and ruling the world in Tech products. People and users rethink about buying Apple products, it may not be in your best interests.