Apple Should Own the Term ‘Warrant Proof’

Jonathan Zdziarski:

We, as everyday Americans, should also encourage the idea of warrant proof places. The DOJ believes, quite erroneously, that the Fourth Amendment gives them the right to any evidence or information they desire with a warrant. The Bill of Rights did not grant rights to the government; it protected the rights of Americans from the overreach that was expected to come from government. Our most intimate thoughts, our private conversations, our ideas, our intent are all things our phone tracks. These are concepts that must remain private (if we choose to protect them) for any functioning free society. In today’s technological landscape, we are no longer giving up just our current or future activity under warrant, but for the first time in history, making potentially years of our life retroactively searchable by law enforcement. Things are recorded in ways today that no one would have imagined, even when CALEA was passed. The capability that DOJ is asserting is that our very lives and identities — going back across years — are subject to search. The Constitution never permitted this.

If you read the government’s brief from last week, every instance of the adjective “warrant-proof” could be replaced by the word “secure”.

The government is trying to claim that Apple designed recent iPhones specifically to stymie law enforcement investigations. The feds leading this charge clearly do not understand many of the technical issues, but on this point they are being willfully obtuse. Apple designed the iPhone to be secure, and as a natural consequence of that security, their protections are harder to breach for everyone, including law enforcement.

★ Tuesday, 15 March 2016