Tim Cook is continuing his PR crusade against the FBI this week, only instead of publishing another open letter about Apple’s pro-privacy stance, the CEO will sit down for an interview with David Muir tonight on ABC’s World News Tonight.
The current Apple vs. the FBI privacy case is fast becoming one of the biggest tech stories of 2016. But Apple clearly believes it ought to be elevated even higher — telling a federal judge this week that the case should be kicked up to Congress level, instead of being decided by courts.
Apple fans rallied behind their privacy savior in more than 50 cities across the United States today to protest the FBI’s demands that Apple unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone and compromise the security of millions of users’ data in the process.
Grassroots protests broke out from Albuquerque to Washington, D.C., aiming to raise public awareness about the privacy battle Apple is fighting. The protesters had some harsh words for the FBI.
Grassroots protests against the government’s attempts to hack the iPhone are set to take place today in nearly 50 cities around the United States, beginning at 5.30pm local time.
“FBI Director [James] Comey has been repeatedly asking the White House and Congress for a backdoor to encrypted phones for the past year,” privacy advocates Fight for the Future representative Holmes Wilson tells Cult of Mac. “If he says he doesn’t want this kind of access going forward, he’s just lying, and you can see it in the public record.”
According to Wilson, this is why this story is such a big deal — and what Cult of Mac readers can do to get involved:
FBI director James Comey and his supporters suggest that making Apple break its iPhone encryption for the San Bernardino shooter case would be a one-off event, and not the start of a slippery slope into unwanted surveillance.
Well, it seems that someone needs to tell the Department of Justice that, because the D.O.J. is reportedly salivating at the thought of being able to hack iPhones for criminal investigations — with court orders being filed for Apple to help extract iPhone data in a further dozen cases around the U.S.
We’re decades removed from Bill Gates’ vicious battle against Steve Jobs, but Gates isn’t quite as ready as some of his contemporaries to side with Apple concerning one of tech’s biggest stories of 2016.
In a new interview, Gates defies Silicon Valley consensus, arguing that Apple should create an FBI backdoor for the iPhone — and siding with FBI director James Comey by suggesting that this wouldn’t, in fact, set a dangerous precedent for the possibility of future snooping.
If Apple loses its encryption battle with the FBI over the data contained on a terrorist’s phone, it will make Manhattan’s district attorney and police commissioner very happy.
Despite the federal government’s claim that the updated version of the iPhone’s operating system will only be used on this case, D.A. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. sees a government victory as a sure way to get Apple to unlock a bunch of other devices his office is sitting on. And by “a bunch,” we mean hundreds of phones that the company could suddenly be compelled to compromise.
Tim Cook sent out an email to all Apple employees this morning, thanking them for their support and outlining the reasons why the FBI’s court order needs to be dropped.
“This case is about much more than a single phone or a single investigation, so when we received the government’s order we knew we had to speak out,” Cook wrote. “At stake is the data security of hundreds of millions of law-abiding people, and setting a dangerous precedent that threatens everyone’s civil liberties.”
The director of the FBI has written an impassioned open letter to Apple, asking it to go along with the recent court order to unlock the iPhone at the center of the San Bernardino shooting investigation.
James Comey writes that the FBI, “isn’t about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message. It is about the victims and justice.”
Check out the rest of his open letter below:
It’s been a crazy day for news in the case of Apple v. the federal government in the battle over the data contained on a mass-shooter’s iPhone, and some surprising facts are emerging between the two side’s shots at each other.
Today, we saw the Justice Department double down on the original court order, some predictable antics from presidential candidate Donald Trump, and Apple’s responses to both. But we’re also picking up some interesting details that make this already complicated issue even murkier. And things aren’t quite as simple as either side is claiming.
Here are some of the most surprising aspects of this case that have come out in the past few days.
Apple doesn’t seem terribly concerned with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for a boycott of its products. If anything, it seems pretty proud to have drawn the controversial frontrunner’s ire.
During a phone conversation with reporters shortly after Trump’s call went out, senior Apple executives made their feelings about the campaign known — and their feelings are pretty funny.
The U.S. Department of Justice think’s Apple’s hard public stance on encryption in the San Bernardino shooting case is nothing but a marketing scheme.
The agency said as much in a filing today that implored the court to “[compel] Apple to comply with its order.” It also cites the company’s past cooperation with law-enforcement investigations as evidence that its position has more to do with looking good to its customers than any actual inability to help authorities access the device.
Apple is planning to fight the FBI’s terror probe by invoking the right of free-speech and they’ve hired the most legendary free-speech lawyer in the country to help them win.
Theodore Olson, famous for successfully arguing before the Supreme Court that money is a form of free speech in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, is joining Apple’s fight against the FBI’s order to build a backdoor into San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5c.
Apple has defied orders to unlock the iPhone 5c for the FBI. But they’ve just been given a little more time to change their mind.
Steve Wozniak may not have been directly involved with Apple for years, but there’s no doubting where his allegiances lie concerning the current Apple vs. FBI skirmish concerning whether or not Apple should help unlock the iPhone at the heart of a criminal investigation.
Speaking with CNET, Woz made clear his opinion that, “You can’t trust who is in power,” and argues that, “Terrorism is just a phony word being used” to try and justify the potential unwarranted snooping in our lives.
When it comes to hacking the iPhone, it’s hard to find anyone with more experience breaking into Apple’s software than Will Strafach, aka Chronic.
The legendary hacker has spent years reverse engineering each version of iOS to give jailbreakers full control of the iPhone and he’s got some very important insight into the FBI’s demands that Apple hack the iPhone.
Mainly, don’t do it!
Online petitions can seem like screaming into a hole sometimes, but that isn’t stopping a crop of them from emerging in support of Apple’s stance on phone encryption.
In fact, our survey of signature-calls about Apple’s current refusal to provide the FBI a way to access the data on a locked phone belonging to one of the assailants in last year’s San Bernardino shooting turned up exactly none that demand the iPhone maker to give the government what it wants. And this is something, considering we also turned up one petition that called for a pair of tortoises to stop having to carry around iPads at the Aspen Art Museum and another that demanded that the United States legalize cockfighting.
Opinions are all over the place, is what we’re getting at, but people seem pretty sure that they don’t want Apple to unlock its phones. Here’s a quick look at some of the petitions going around.
There are plenty of opposing views about how Apple should handle the FBI’s demand to create a backdoor to unlock a dead terrorist’s iPhone.
One idea we haven’t heard before, however, is a concept put forward by former Apple CEO John Sculley: Cupertino could help provide the desired information, but Apple (not the government) could be in charge of reading the messages.
Big tech companies might be supporting Apple’s pro-privacy stance when it comes to creating a backdoor for the iPhone, but not everyone is in complete agreement.
Specifically, the family of British soldier Lee Rigby — who was murdered by Islamic extremists in 2013 — has spoken out about Apple’s decision to refuse a court order to break into the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. Rigby’s family says Apple’s stance is “protecting a murderer’s privacy at the cost of public safety.”
A crowd of several dozen protesters gathered in front of Apple’s flagship retail store in Francisco last night to protest the U.S. government’s attempt to force Apple to aid the FBI in hacking into an iPhone.
Ranging from privacy advocates to casual iPhone owners, the crowd argued that such a move sets a dangerous precedent that threatens the safety and security of millions of iOS users around the world.
Google and Apple don’t always see eye-to-eye, but in the matter of encryption, they’re total allies.
Today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai today tweeted words of support to Apple in the aftermath of Tim Cook’s open letter, explaining why Apple was defying a federal order to provide backdoor access to a terrorism suspect’s iPhone 5c.
The battle for phone encryption is hitting the streets, as iPhone owners are going to gather at the Apple Store in San Francisco tonight in a show of solidarity for the company’s refusal to budge on security.
The bulk of protests will occur next Tuesday, February 23, exactly one week after a court ordered the device maker to allow the FBI access to an iPhone 5c belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters. But digital-rights group Fight for the Future is stepping up the timetable and hosting its first rally in less than an hour, at 5:00 p.m. PT.
Donald Trump has slammed Apple for its refusal to unlock gunman Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5c after being requested to do so by the FBI.
“Who do [Apple] think they are? They have to open it up,” Trump told Fox and Friends when asked about Apple’s responsibility to help with the investigation following the attack in San Bernardino, California, which killed 14 people.
The case involving San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5c and whether Apple should help unlock it has brought the company’s stance regarding strong encryption to the forefront.
Since this privacy-versus-security debate isn’t going away anytime soon, here’s what you need to know about it so far — and why it’s a much, much bigger issue than just one legal case.
Apple has posted an open letter, signed by Tim Cook, in response to the FBI’s request that Apple unlock the iPhone at the center of a San Bernardino court case.
While United States magistrated judge Sheri Pym wants Apple to hand the FBI a custom firmware file that would allow the unlocking of the handset in question, Apple argues that this represents an, “unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers.”
And Cook wants the public to be aware of all the details.
