NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden made a (virtual) appearance at yesterday’s “Blueprint for Democracy,” during which he threw some shade on the FBI’s claims that only Apple has the power to help it unlock the iPhone at the heart of the San Bernardino shooting case.
“The FBI says Apple has the ‘exclusive technical means’ to unlock the phone,” Snowden told the audience. “Respectfully, that’s bullsh*t.”
The global technological consensus is against the FBI. Why? Here’s one example: https://t.co/t2JHOLK8iU #FBIvsApple https://t.co/mH1ZXOOQ1E
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 8, 2016
Snowden later shared, via Twitter, an article by Daniel Kahn Gillmor of the American Civil Liberties Union, which argues that the government does not need Apple’s help to bypass the “auto-erase” feature on shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5c.
Since FBI director James Comey has failed to mention any of these alternative solutions during his congressional hearing about the case — and has instead insisted that the FBI can’t access the iPhone data without Apple’s full cooperation — it plays into the larger question of the government’s dislike of Apple’s strong encryption.
This isn’t the first time Snowden has spoken out in Apple’s defense about the current FBI standoff. In a series of tweets sent last month, Snowden called Apple’s battle over security the most important tech case in a decade, and argued that the FBI’s efforts to force Apple to give them a key bypasses citizen’s ability to defend their rights.
Last June — before the San Bernardino case had taken place, but way after the FBI had first stated its concern over Apple’s encryption — Snowden also praised Apple’s pro-privacy stance as a, “good thing for customers.”
You can watch the rest of Snowden’s speech from yesterday’s “Blueprint for Democracy” conference below:
Via: TNW
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
6 responses to “Edward Snowden says FBI’s claims against Apple are ‘bull****’”
Is there a reason y’all are squeamish about writing “bullshit” in a headline? Those asterisks don’t fool anyone.
Hey now. You just hurt my eyes!
The genuine (somewhat boring) answer to the question is that, as one of the few UK-based writers for Cult of Mac, I start work earlier than the American editors. Had I posted this later, I could have “run it up the flagpole” to ask if we had a general consensus on using bad language in headlines. (I suspect very few people would be offended at my writing “bullshit”). Since I was the only one here at the time I posted this, I figured I’d rather play it safe than sorry — and save the embarrassment of the one, easily-offended person reading Cult of Mac on a 27-inch monitor at work in front of their boss.
Society flew past that word long ago in its acceptance of things once considered inappropriate. I would think educated people could do much better.
I once cursed mildly (“shitface”, which i don’t see a problem here) on Facebook and my family and my boyfriend’s family condemned me to death until I deleted it. You think you do but you really don’t know what other people are thinking. Always play it safe! :)
And so the conversation is turned from the FBI’s ability and Apple’s proper refusal to the content of the headline. Nice deflection. ;-)