Evidence that the FBI can hack into private Signal messages on a locked iPhone

Of course they can ignore the gov't employee pay scale. Contractors get paid variable amounts, depending on what they're working on and for whom.

Many defense contractors (can't speak to the intel side of things) get paid 25-100% more than their GS counterparts, if they have an actual counterpart. Though that's not universal. Their pay is also not capped, like civilian pay is in the US federal government.

EDIT: For further context, a technical GS employee (engineer, computer scientist) will be in a minimum of a GS-12 position after a few years of experience (usually 3-5). Most technical positions cap at GS-14. GS-15 is the highest of the GS grades, but mostly reserved for management and a select smaller group of senior technical people. A GS employee programmer will usually be a GS-12 or GS-13 until they reach a more senior position (usually with a higher degree than just a BS and often 10-20 years of experience, tending towards the higher end of that).

Here is a link to the base pay, everyone gets more than this but it depends on where they work: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

Federal employees also get a 5% match on their 401k equivalent (TSP), 13-26 days of leave a year (rolls over, cap at 30), 13 days of sick leave a year (rolls over, no max), 10 federal holidays, a pension (1% of pay for each year of service, 20 years = 20%), and pretty decent insurance. If the goal isn't "get rich quick", it's not a bad gig.

Contractors are not government employees, so why would the government employee pay scale apply to them?

Yeah exactly, we can't read cypher text and so aren't included in the end to end encryption contract of signal. Frankly this is nothing to do with signal and everything to do with phone security.

In addition to this, I frequently hear people talk about how Signal would prevent monitoring of groups like those that stormed the capital. As if you can create a secret communication channel that members of the public can join but the FBI is unable to infiltrate.

Signal and E2EE stop dragnets, not targeted efforts. Which honestly is exactly what I want and seems like what we want in a free and open society. Monitoring shouldn't be the default but only happen when there is a warranted reason to monitor, preferable with a literal warrant. This embodies the idea of "innocent unless proven guilty" but balances the ability to move from suspicion to evidence gathering and minimizes the collection of data of innocent people. It's not "if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear" but "if you have nothing to suspect then you have no reason to search." I don't know how a dragnet doesn't violate the 4th amendment.

> I’ve never met a skilled developer willing to work for what the government pays?

Is that your bubble that's poorly skilled?