Microsoft, Google, Facebook Back Apple in Blocked Phone Case

It's quite simple.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, et al. do not have the power to arrest you, and never will. They can't find out you said or did something in the past and put you in a gulag for it 10 or 20 years from now when you're considered a political enemy of the state.

It's the critical difference between economic and political power. Google has no guns, much less the all-powerful legal authority - and then some - possessed by the government.

Microsoft can sell you software. Amazon can sell you a blender or ebook. Apple wants to sell you a phone. The US Government can kill you, destroy your life, put you on a no-fly list, proclaim you a terrorist to be constantly surveilled to the highest degree, punish you for speaking out, sic the IRS on you, blackmail you by tracking every single thing you do digitally without any consequences to themselves and then use it against you at their convenience or for their benefit (Google execs would go to prison for that), and dozens of other things using their countless agencies (and if you happen to be a leaker or journalist, the context is that much more amplified). And that's just what they can do to you today, the fascism in America is blatantly going to keep getting worse, they keep reaching for more and more power. Tomorrow, the things you do today, will be held against you. There isn't an example of a fascist system in which that hasn't been the case.

Google et al. are the absolute least of your worries. The free market profit motive is predictable and functions at its most efficient under systems of high degrees of freedom (thus free market). Increasing political power of the sort going on in the US however is always violent and always trends toward an ultimate restriction of liberty. One need understand only the very basics of history to grasp that.

A quick look at what governments have done over just the last 200 years, versus what corporations have done, tells you everything you need to know. It isn't a close comparison. Show me one modern big corporation like Google that has done the kind of evil things that eg Mugabe in Zimbabwe has done for example - there's one simple example, and hardly the worst I could reference (how about Pol Pot?), and it demonstrates how clearly absurd it is to be frightened by the 'big bad corporations.' The notion we need to be afraid of corporations is almost entirely a myth, typically pushed by people that then turn an intentional blind eye to the endless murder, war and abuse by governments. It's power-seeking governments you should be absolutely terrified of.

This is correct. We ran a website for diabetics where users volunteered health data and HIPAA didn't apply to us. If it coordinated data exchange with doctors directly then it would be different.

> The Fourth Amendment guarantees your privacy, but police can break down your door and seize your financial and medical records if they have reasonable grounds to suspect you. Why should your smartphone be different?

This is a false dichotomy. Simply because technology creates a situation where governments can't access a users data without the user consent. Apple's technology hadn't reached this point in this case (aka end-to-end encryption), which is why we're even having this conversation but we've arguably passed that point as an industry where that will be the future legal environment.

It's entirely plausible Apple could create an iPhone that they can't unlock, or iMessages they can't read. So then it's no longer about coercing middlemen but the US gov vs user consent. Outside of self-incrimination this changes the legal question to be about unlocking every persons medical/financial records, not about unlocking a single persons.

The only path the government has is to coerce Apple into making backdoors or purposefully weakening their encryption for all devices which affects every Americans fourth amendment rights - as well as public saftey.

Therefore this is not just about one person in a criminal trial - since a backdoor can never be made only for a single court case, it will by nature unlock the phones to any party who can create or get access to the backdoor.

So the only legal path for the government is to either coerce suspects into self-incrimination by forcing them to unlock their phones or prevent Apple/Google/etc customers from being able to meaningfully lock their phones in the first place. The problem with the latter is that criminals/terrorists won't be forced to use the backdoored Apple/Google/etc technology but can use open-source versions with encryption to side-step law enforcement's efforts - making it ultimately ineffective as a legal strategy.

Are you saying this as someone who has helped non-hobbyists install new firmware onto their phones? I haven't, but helped many people install desktop linux around 2008-2009 and was often surprised by the problems they ran into.

There isn't a valid warrant in this case though: instead there's a writ (aka an order by the government) under the All Writs Act. This act allows the government to compel a person/company to do something when there isn't any specific law on the books for that particular situation.

However, the writ in question is to compel Apple to write a new version of the OS (not to hand over keys, not to hand over data in their possession, not to provide technical support to the FBI - all of which are things Apple has done when presented with a valid warrant).

From Apple's motion to vacate:

"In the section of CALEA entitled “Design of features and systems configurations,” 47 U.S.C. § 1002(b)(1), the statute says that it “does not authorize any law enforcement agency or officer —

(1) to require any specific design of equipment, facilities, services, features, or system configurations to be adopted by any provider of a wire or electronic communication service, any manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, or any provider of telecommunications support services.

(2) to prohibit the adoption of any equipment, facility, service, or feature by any provider of a wire or electronic communication service, any manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, or any provider of telecommunications support services."

So the writ appears to be in direct contradiction to other law, which would make it an invalid use of the All Writs Act.