Full Brief From San Bernardino District Attorney Even More Insane Than Application About 'Dormant Cyber Pathogen'
from the it-goes-on-and-on dept
At issue before this Court is whether on balance there is a compelling governmental interest in acquiring evidence of criminal activity contained solely on the specific San Bernardino County-owned iPhone, seized and ordered searched by a lawful search warrant issued by a United States Magistrate, that outweighs any real or imagined interest that Apple, a for-profit California-based corporation, asserts to deny assistance to the FBI, San Bernardino County District Attorney's forensic partners, and by extension the San Bernardino County District Attorney and our client, the People of the State of California, in acquiring this evidence.Actually, that's not the issue. The issue is not whether there's a compelling governmental interest, but whether or not a company can be compelled to build new hacking tools and surreptitiously load them onto user devices. That's a very different question, and one that Ramos doesn't even want to consider. So, instead, he makes up things unrelated to the issue at hand.
Then, Ramos repeats the whole bogus "there may have been a third shooter!" and "DORMANT CYBER PATHOGEN!" arguments, based on absolutely no evidence, and follows it up by flipping the burden of proof, and hilariously arguing that it is Apple's burden to prove that there is no such dormant cyber pathogen. PROVE A NEGATIVE, APPLE!
At the time that the murders in San Bernardino County were being perpetrated on December 2, 2015, at least two 911 calls to the San Bernardino Police Dispatch Center reported the involvement of three perpetrators. Although the reports of three individuals were not corroborated, and may ultimately be incorrect, the fact remains that the information contained solely on the seized iPhone could provide evidence to identify, as of yet, unknown co-conspirators who would be prosecuted by the District Attorney for multiple murders and attempted murders in San Bernardino County.Got that? As long as the DA makes up some totally mythical "cyber pathogen," so long as Apple has not proven that such a thing is not on the phone, then open 'er up, Apple!. That's a fascinating view of due process.
In addition, the iPhone is a county telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network. The seized iPhone may contain evidence, that can only be found on the seized phone, that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying-dormant cyber pathogen endangering San Bernardino County's infrastructure, a Violation of Cal. Penal Code § 502 (Lexis 2016), and which would pose a continuing threat to the citizens of San Bernardino County.
Apple has not advanced a single argument to indicating why the identification and prosecution of any outstanding coconspirators, or to detect and eliminate cyber security threats to San Bernardino County's infrastructure introduced by its product and concealed by its operating system, and Apple's refusal to assist in acquiring that information, is not a compelling governmental interest. To the extent that Apple states in its brief at page 33 that there is no compelling state interest because the government "has produced nothing more than speculation that this iPhone might contain potentially relevant information," Apple completely forgets that a United States Magistrate has issued a search warrant based on a finding of probable cause that the iPhone does contain evidence of criminal activity. The reason we search is to find out if the device contains evidence or is an instrumentality of the crime. Such authority is granted by the United States Constitution.
Oh, speaking of due process, Ramos then, absolutely ridiculously, flips Apple's 5th Amendment due process argument on its head, arguing that by not hacking into users' devices, Apple is the one that is harming due process rights. Really:
The California Constitution guarantees victims of crimes committed in California a Victims' Bill of Rights.... These rights include those shared by all people of the State of California, "that persons who commit felonious acts causing injury to innocent victims will be appropriately and thoroughly investigated brought before the courts of California and tried by the courts in a timely manner." ... The Victims' Bill of Rights continues to state, "In order to preserve and protect a victim's rights to justice and due process, a victim shall be entitled to the following rights... To be reasonably protected from the defendant and persons acting on behalf of the defendant"... and the right to have all relevant evidence admitted in any criminal proceeding....Let's put this simply: this is an insane reading of the California Constitution. Based on this, Ramos can basically argue that anyone and anything that gets in the way of law enforcement finding out absolutely anything, no matter how speculative is infringing on someone's due process rights. Did you sell someone a shredder that allowed them to shred a paper that may have included something useful? You've infringed someone's due process rights. Did you happen to overhear someone planning a crime, but you can no longer remember what the person looked like? You've violated the victims due process rights. That's not how it works. Private companies don't infringe on someone's due process rights -- governments do.
The due process protections of the California Constitution clearly attach to not only the fourteen people murdered, and the twenty two injured in the assault, but also those physically uninjured, but mentally injured survivors who witnessed the mass murder.
Apple is infringing on the due process rights of these real, and not speculative, victims. It is preventing protection from the defendant and those who assist the defendant. Through the design of its operating system and its refusal to assist in accessing the information contained on the seized phone, Apple is preventing the acquisition of information leading to the identity or elimination of outstanding coconspirators. This denies the surviving victims of the knowledge that there are either no additional coconspirators, or that those that are outstanding will be pursued. Apple's actions in denying assistance in acquiring access to the phone infringes on the Victims' right to be reasonably protected. Denying access to this information deprives victims of all relevant evidence in any criminal proceeding that could be the product of the information contained on the phone, and it certainly is denying the victims of the right guaranteed to them to have the case investigated and prosecuted in a timely manner.
And, then, just because this isn't crazy enough already, in somehow arguing that a private company has the burden to prove a negative, and that a private company is responsible for due process, Ramos argues that Apple is "usurping the authority of the District Attorney":
In refusing to assist in the opening of this repository of evidence, Apple is making the defacto decision of who can be charged with a crime and is giving a de facto grant of immunity to those iPhone users that use the phone as an instrumentality of a crime, a cyber weapon, or store, intentionally or not, evidence of a crime on the device. Questions of whether Apple's conduct falls within traditional definitions of harboring one who commits a crime aside, Apple is infringing on the authority of the District Attorney to make charging and immunity decisions. Apple is free to exercise its First Amendment rights to express what activities, including none at all, should be considered crimes, or who should be charged with a crime, including nobody, but Apple has no de jure or de facto authority to make those decisions by its actions.Except... that's nuts. Apple is not "granting immunity" or making decisions about who can be charged with a crime. Like the whole "dormant cyber pathogen" this is Ramos simply making up shit and telling it to a judge. Nothing that Apple is doing prevents law enforcement from bringing charges if they have enough evidence. But, once again, Ramos is flipping the very concepts of burden of proof and due process in suggesting that any technology that happens to get in the way of collecting evidence is somehow "granting immunity."
No person but the San Bernardino County District Attorney and his deputies are authorized to decide when criminal charges are brought or not brought, or to whom to provide a grant immunity from prosecution in San Bernardino County. Apple has no such dejure or defacto authority in San Bernardino County.
If you thought that wasn't crazy enough, Ramos keeps going deeper and deeper into the "What did he just say.....?" hole. Next up: claiming that Apple is an "Orwellian arbiter" of privacy, which in his mind is illegal because Apple is not a public policy maker, and thus is somehow not allowed to build systems that keep customers' info private. I'm NOT JOKING (though, really, I wish I was).
Apple asserts that its operating system and its refusal to assist in unlocking the phone is, in Apple's view, necessary to protect the privacy interests of its customers. Apple advances its concept of privacy as absolute privacy in the context that it proffers the opinion that the contents of any Apple iPhone or Apple mobile device is immune from any type of government intrusion due to its security features. While Apple can represent what it chooses in its marketing of its devices and operating systems, Apple is neither the legislature nor judiciary empowered to define privacy as absolute. Apple in not a public policy maker. Apple is a for-profit corporation. No one has appointed or elected Apple to be the Orwellian arbiter or definer of privacy for society or even for all of Apple's customers.This falls into the so wrong it's "not even wrong" category. It's insane. It's not even in the realm of reality. Of course a for-profit company gets to determine what kind of privacy tools it offers customers. Is Ramos honestly claiming that companies are somehow breaking the law by building secure systems? Because that's crazy. It goes directly against basically... everything.
From there, Ramos again pretends the case is about something entirely different:
Apple's concept of absolute privacy and immunity from government search is not supported by the Constitution of the United States or the cases that interpret it. Furthermore, Apple has no privacy rights in the device before the Court, nor is it legally permitted to assert any privacy rights regarding the search of the San Bernardino County-owned phone.Right. And Apple is not asserting privacy rights here so what the hell is Ramos even arguing about here? He's making things up that aren't even remotely related to the case. Apple is not arguing about its privacy rights. It's arguing about whether or not the All Writs Act can be used to force it to build hacking tools that undermine the safety and security of its customers.
Ramos then goes on to totally misinterpret the finding in the famous Supreme Court Riley v. California decision about whether or not law enforcement could search mobile phones without a warrant. The ruling in that case, quite rightly and importantly, noted that you could not search a mobile phone without a warrant. But, Ramos pretends that means that the Supreme Court's decision means that all data on cellphones must be accessible under a warrant, which is not what the court said at all.
Hilariously, after raising issues that aren't before the court at all (Apple claiming a right to "privacy"), Ramos claims that Apple is the one raising issues not before the court -- and appears to do so by not understanding what the actual issue in this case is about:
Apple asserts that unlocking the seized iPhone will open the siege gates and make its users' personal information vulnerable to hackers, identity thieves, hostile foreign agents and unwarranted government surveillance. It has also expressed concerns about how foreign governments may treat their citizens and the demands that might be made on Apple. None of these issues are before the Court. This case does not involve speculation as to what foreign governments may demand of Apple, or how Apple may respond to those demands in the future. There is no issue of identity theft here, and Apple has not advanced an explanation of how unlocking this phone would lead to identity theft elsewhere, nor have they advanced any evidence of identity thefts caused by their unlocking phones prior to the deployment of IOS 8. Similarly, Apple warns of unwarranted government surveillance. No surveillance is present here. Apple has not advanced any evidence or explanation of how this surveillance will be unleashed by unlocking this phone. Apple cites the hacking of the Office of Personnel Management as illustrative of the dangers of hacking into databases, yet these databases were not contained on a specific iPhone as the evidence here is nor has there been an indication that the databases were hacked by an unlocked iPhone. These speculative concerns do not outweigh the compelling interest in the need to acquire real evidence of real crimes from the seized iPhone.Here's the thing. This isn't that complicated. The law at issue in this case is the All Writs Act. The All Writs Act specifically notes that any "writs of assistance" must be "appropriate" and under the law it's been determined that to be "appropriate" it cannot be unduly "burdensome." The judge in the case has specifically requested that the parties focus on whether or not the order is unduly burdensome, and that's why Apple raised all of the issues above, directly answering the judge's questions which directly relate to the law at hand. To argue that these are "issues not before the court" suggests such a profound ignorance of the case here that one wonders what Ramos is doing here and how he got elected to be San Bernardino's DA.
And, really, for Ramos to whine that Apple's evidence of actual security concerns are somehow too "speculative" when he's the one spewing nonsense about speculative "dormant cyber pathogens" is just... insane.
Finally, Ramos concludes by saying that, look, he doesn't really give a shit how Apple breaks encryption, but it needs to be able to break encryption:
Apple's creation of their iOS 8 and iOS 9, the product of their brilliant engineering created all these issues where it did not exist in previous operating systems. There is nothing unreasonable in having this same brilliance applied to remediating the problem they created. How Apple chooses to accomplish this is a matter of their own choosing. Neither the FBI nor San Bernardino County District Attorney is asking to know how they do it, or directly possess the tools to do so. How Apple resolves the problem, or protects the solution is not our concern. We only seek for this Court to compel that Apple do so.That's the DA version of "nerd harder, Apple." Of course, it (once again) totally misunderstands and misstates the issue. Also, while it is true that, in this case, there do appear to be technical ways (very, very dangerous ones) to force Apple to do what the FBI wants (which, we should note has very specific requests, which Ramos doesn't even seem aware of, despite being widely discussed), is Ramos honestly asserting that in cases where there isn't such a backdoor possible that companies still be required to break in, even when that's mathematically impossible?
The people of San Bernardino County deserve elected officials who actually understand the issues at hand. Not technically and legally ignorant buffoons who file such misleading tripe in such an important case.
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Filed Under: all writs act, amicus brief, cyber pathogen, doj, due process, encryption, fbi, michael ramos, privacy, san bernardino, san bernardino da
Companies: apple
Reader Comments
The First Word
“In the same manner criminals decide who should and should not be incarcerated by sneakingly obeying the laws. Good thing we have civil forfeiture for those underhanded creeps who just continue sticking with the laws.
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Duh
The questions you should be asking is 'Is it a real law license he holds' and 'what color crayon is his favorite for writing law briefs'
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it is Apple after all...
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Proving A Negative
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mocking victims
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Re: Proving A Negative
Well then, how would you prove you've never killed anyone?
Remember, "I could never do that" and "believe me" are not proofs.
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Re: mocking victims
Should be the response.
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Re: mocking victims
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Zdziarski: This means jailbreak
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Re: Duh
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Did you happen to overhear someone planning a crime, but you can no longer remember what the person looked like? You've violated their due process rights.
That is a very bizarre comment for Mike to throw out there. Just because you can't remember what someone looks like, it doesn't violate their due process rights. Matter of fact, it helps the person who committed the crime because you are no longer a qualified witness against him at trial.
While the "brief" is bizarre, Mike Masnick's comments are even more bizarre. This isn't disrespect, but it's apparent that Mr. Masnick didn't take the time to think his comment through or he was very tired when he wrote the article above. I was rolling my eyes at the ceiling when I read that because it made absolutely no sense.
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Finally! But don't you want MY money?
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electronic version of "smallpox"?
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Re:
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When was he proclaimed king?
Uh what? Who died and made Ramos megalomaniac? His job is to serve the law, not be it. They do not have the power to "grant immunity from prosecution".
The only time when he rather than the law and circumstances determine the decisions is when he is incompetent and/or not doing his job. Like a mason who claims he is the one deciding where bricks go.
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Re: Re: mocking victims
But he has no more power over the meaning of words than over the meaning of the law.
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Re: Proving A Negative
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Re: When was he proclaimed king?
You don't worry about stepping on the toes of the slaves you just ignore them.
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Re: Duh
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Re:
It went from the brief where you could be thinking "This is written by a first year law student who have played waaay to much Ace Attorney and aparrently uses google translate to translate it to serbian and then back to english" to this full blown piece of insanity, where you are wondering if maybe someone spiked your coffee with some very potent drugs and you are just having a very bad trip.
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Re:
If something is perfectly clear to everyone but you, the fault most likely lies with you, not the thing you failed to understand.
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Re: electronic version of "smallpox"?
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Re: When was he proclaimed king?
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Why not ask the UK instead?
All this fuss over these laws and what rights. But its perfectly simple.
All the government has to do is ask the UK to get Apple to create this software for them ( Investigatory Powers Bill 5353- Power to grant authorisations). Companies can be compelled to remove "electronic protections" that they have applied to their users messages and devices)
"oh look, You did it for the UK, how about us then?"
Ho hum, job done. Time for a beer
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Re: Re: Proving A Negative
Well then, how would you prove you've never killed anyone?
YOu can prove certain kinds of negative.
eg There are no classical glueballs but not others.
Usually the method is by reductio ad absurdum.
Actually - come to think of it I think Ramos may have done just that - his rant is sufficiently absurd.
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Doing the right thing
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Re:
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Re: Why not ask the UK instead?
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Re: Doing the right thing
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American Constitutionalism
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Re: Re: Re: Proving A Negative
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The question of a computer virus, while more than a little off the beaten path, actually makes some sense. It's been often discussed that attacking the US water supply would be a terrorist's wet dream, the perfect way to harm as many people as possible and o inflict long term suffering on many. That this guy was working for the water department, and had a device which regularly connected to the work network from inside any firewalls or general protections does create the potential for some risk.
There is a miniscule chance that he may have planted a back door or otherwise hacked the network of water department. It's insanely small, but the point is still valid. They had someone who appears to have planned terrorist acts working inside the company, and they have valid reasons for concern.
I also think in some ways (but perhaps not the way they claim) that it is true that Apple has ended up in the position of deciding what should / could be accessed. It's not correct to try to paint it as being above the law, but it does raise points.
It's easy as hell to call this guy out, the brief is way over the top. But underlying it, there does appear to be at least a smidgen of reasonableness. Dismissing it out of hand to is to miss that point.
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Re:
It is rare that police artist drawings from witnesses end up looking anything like the criminal. I remember laughing while watching an episode of Forensic Files that a drawing police actually released looked a lot like Elmer Fudd from the Bugs Bunny cartoons.
If you were to ask me to describe the check out clerk that I chatted with for several minutes while he rang up my groceries just a couple hours ago I couldn't give you much. He was white, maybe mid 40's and about my height. I don't think I could pick him out of a line up.
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Re:
If some criminal escape because of strong encryption, so be it, as it is a fair price for privacy. The alternative is that the law abiding citizen ends up being preyed on by criminals and governments, as if their is much difference.
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Re: Zdziarski: This means jailbreak
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Re:
No, only your usual cluelessness. What else is new?
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What else could be expected from a DA
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DOJ is the problem
They give guns to the cartels and allow their money laundering bankers to go free sounds like the USA gov.
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Why all the fuss?
* hire one who went to the same school as Ramos
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Re:
“Food inspector” for the Public Health department is not quite the same as working for the Water and Sanitation department.
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Re: Re: Doing the right thing
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Comedy
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Re: Re:
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Re:
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Re:
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Re: American Constitutionalism
If the people are going to hold their leaders accountable then they cannot rely on the corrupt and criminal elements in their government to support them on it.
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Re: Re: Doing the right thing
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Re: Re: Re: Doing the right thing
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Doing the right thing
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Re: Re:
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Mar 5th, 2016 @ 11:37am
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Re:
1- you say yourself that the probability is insanely small... so how does that make a probable cause? Given the chances, that's more of an "improbable cause". Good reason to reject it as a reason to break communication security.
2- if they had such a masterfully executed plan, why throw the whole concept of keeping it hidden and risk everything by starting a suicide attack like this? That's the kind of stupid plan that only exist in James Bond movies, just so the hero has something to start investigating.
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Re: Re:
In the same manner criminals decide who should and should not be incarcerated by sneakingly obeying the laws. Good thing we have civil forfeiture for those underhanded creeps who just continue sticking with the laws.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Proving A Negative
The written law is one thing. The real law can be quite another.
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Re: Re: Re:
“Food inspector” for Public Health is simply different.
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Re: Re: mocking victims
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Re: When was he proclaimed king?
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Re: Proving A Negative
"Where does this myth come from that one cannot prove a negative?"
This is what religion does they say they have a god, and their proof is it is written so it is so. Well the DA wrote it, so it must be so. Like me writing GOD does not exist.
Well I would like proof of GOD, So come on you religious nuts prove it! Don't ask me to disprove him, you have to prove it, I wrote it, so it is so.
That is the oldest I know of the myth, it all comes from religion.
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This is why lawyers should go to accredited law schools...
Well, I'm half-right. Ramos is what happens when you elect a DA who can't even get into a real law school, and attended a school boaating an 8% bar passage rate. Hack brief writing and laughable lawyering.
This is why
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Southern_Law_School
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Re: Doing the right thing
Obviously, they filled this phone with phony evidence designed to lead the authorities on wild goose chases and discredit them (well, discredit them worse than they already are). The clear conclusion is that the phone should be left lock and the case should be dismissed.
There is no evidence of this, but I wouldn't call it a total hypothetical.
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Re: This is why lawyers should go to accredited law schools...
That reminds me of a comment I saw over at Ars the other day on this topic. The commenter was talking about “nuclear missile lunch sites”. I thought to myself, ‘Lunch sites? Pastrami on rye.’ It was just funny. “Nuclear missile lunch sites.” Amusing.
Then I thought, ‘With or without salmonella? Maybe it'd better be hold the mayo—on that pastrami on rye.’ Suddenly, it wasn't quite as funny anymore.
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Re: Re: When was he proclaimed king?
Reading his words, Ramos confuses making the decisions demanded by dutiful execution of his job with power. He thinks he can "grant immunity" against the law. He thinks he gets to "decide" about who gets charged or not rather than to "determine". If he does his job properly, the decisions are prescribed and he is not wielding power rather than enabling it.
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Re: Re: This is why lawyers should go to accredited law schools...
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Re: Re: Re: When was he proclaimed king?
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Re: Re: This is why lawyers should go to accredited law schools...
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Re:
The law does not look fondly on "insanely small" chances when issuing warrants and other enforcement orders, or at least it's not supposed to. This makes the point moot, not valid.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Proving A Negative
US Law clearly states "innocent until proven guilty" which means the negative is assumed, and thus does not need to be proven.
Logic holds that you cannot prove a negative, because there is no evidence to prove something does not exist, or did not happen. Another way to spin it is "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." This is not a logical law, but rather an approximation first expressed by skeptic James Randi, who pushed the burden of proof to people who affirmed the supernatural.
More precisely, you CAN infer a negative to a fairly high degree of confidence in some situations, but you cannot fully prove it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Proving A Negative
Iow, the rational number squareroot(2) does not exist. Provably.
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Re: Re:
Does it rise up to probably cause? Well, considering his other actions, it's hard to discount it entirely.
Moreover, you don't need probably cause here: The owner of the phone is asking for it to be accessed. There is no privacy expectations or need for probably cause in play here.
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Re: Re:
First, ignore technology for a minute, and let's consider normal circumstances. Someone commits a heinous crime, and the police get warrants for "home, office, storage facilities, lock boxes, and the like..." and they go and search all of those locations. Private papers in a safe? They break open the safe. In the lock box or safety deposit box? They get it opened. Your right to privacy more of less ends when the warrant is issued.
So given a valid set of warrants, and given that every other location for documents and information could be searched, what makes the phone so special as to not be subject to a warrant like everything else?
(for what it's worth, paper documents written in code would likely be decoded).
Second, and equally important here, is that the owner of the phone (not the criminal, the government) wants the phone decrypted. The question of privacy in this instance is, well... not exactly clear.
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Re: Re: Re:
But it's wrong to say that the government has a valid warrant in the absence of probable cause. And it's duplicitous to argue that the presence of consent necessarily implies that the probable cause standard has been met.
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even the late baby boomers are stupid
If the government can force apple to build software, can they get them to build other software? Maybe a effective brute force program? wont they need one? what about android products, could they get apple to try and crack a android program? all these of course sound ridiculous, but this entire case is ridiculous, so lets not leave out the far extremes...Michael Ramos clearly isn't
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Re: Re: Re:
What makes the phone 'not subject to a warrant', and makes the 'warrant' problematic(to say the least) is that what is being demanded is not something currently in Apple's possession. They cannot hand over the information on the phone, they don't have it, nor can they access it without extensive effort on their part due to bungling on the FBI's part.
The 'warrant' is not asking for something that currently exists, it's demanding that Apple create something in order to gain access to the contents of the device, and that's the main point of contention, whether or not companies can be forced to create something in order to undermine their own security(along with the idea of whether or not companies can be forced to bypass their own security in general).
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Re: Re: Re:
Absolutely nothing, and the cops have every tool available to them that they have available in those other cases. They can legally crack a safe, and they can legally crack encryption.
That's not what this debate is about. This debate is about the government being able to tell everyone that they cannot have locks on their doors that are too strong.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Given the technical characteristics of the “Apple make: iPhone 5C, Model: A1532, P/N: MGFG2LL/A, S/N FFMNQ3MTG2DJ”, it remains my firm belief that the government has the capability to obtain the decrypted contents of the “Toshiba THGBX2G7B2JLA01 128 Gb (16 GB) NAND flash” without Apple's assistance.
Given the totality of the circumstances in this case, it remains my belief that it is rather likely that the government either • has exercised that independent capability, or • has already obtained voluntary assistance from Apple resources. Either way, it remains my belief that government already knows what's on the specific iPhone at issue.
Thus, much of the “debate” is deceitful.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It remains possible that Apple resources have cooperated with or provided assistance to the government under concealed duress.
The amended second bullet point should thus read:
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I partially agree, and partially disagree.
Can or have they cracked the security on the phone themselves? Quite possibly.
However, as at this point I am firmly of the belief that their entire interest in the case rests upon the precedent they hope to get from it, rather than anything on the phone itself, even if they could, with absolutely minimal effort on their part even, I have no doubt whatsoever that they wouldn't.
They don't care about the phone, all they care about is what it can do for them, that is why they're pushing so hard in the case, so in that fashion I would absolutely agree that the 'debate' is deceitful, as the reasoning behind the government actions('we just want to investigate every possible angle') is not even remotely in line with their actual motives.
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The government has a history of concealing sources, methods and capabilities.
Consider what happened: It was a high-profile incident of domestic terrorism, with a possible bioterrorism angle. The federal response came in by Dec 3, and the President and Congressional leadership were briefed quickly. The resources would have been pouring in: ad-hoc teams assembled, and thrown into action. In that situation, it's possible that capabilities were revealed to task force members who were not cleared to know about the existence of those capabilities.
Part of the government's interest may be in attempting to preserve the secrecy of their sources, methods, and capabilities.
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Once the immediate crisis was under control, and the urgent need for inter-agency cooperation and inter-government coordination had passed, then various agencies may have reverted to bureaucratic turf-protection, and budget-envy.
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Re: Proving A Negative
Prove you've stopped beating your wife.
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Tashfeen Malik(Footnotes omitted; not checked.)
It was a high-profile terrorism incident, taking place in California, with a possible bioterrorism angle.
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That only applies to criminal defendants, and Apple is not being charged with a crime.
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Malpractice
Perhaps San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos consulted with and or studied under the tutelage of the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, war criminal and Torture Memo author John Yoo?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo
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Thinking it through… Charging Apple with a crime might be one way to test whether Apple's corporate management cooperated with any agency of the federal government to develop or code-sign an exploit tool for the iPhone 5c. If the People of California charged Apple, then I'd expect Apple, if they could, to defend by bringing forth evidence of their cooperation. Still, such cooperation might be considered a state secret, and the actual facts might never reach the public eye.
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“NSA chief: ‘Paris would not have happened’ without encrypted apps”, by Michael Isikoff, Yahoo, Feb 17, 2016(Emphasis added.)
What's unstated here is whether or not NSA found “indirect” overseas connections in the phone metadata.
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The iPhone 5c contains “Elpida B8164B3PM-1D-F 8 Gb (1 GB) DDR2 RAM under the A6 system-on-a-chip.”
The A6 SoC also happens to be used in the iPhone 5 along with Elpida LPDDR2 SDRAM, stacked in a “package-on-package (PoP)” configuration. This A6 die photo from UBM Tech Insights, which accompanies an Anandtech article shows the “2 x 32-bit LPDDR2 memory interfaces.”
The LPDDR2 SDRAM could be sourced from another manufacturer than Elpida. More to the point, the SDRAM could also be replaced with another physical device which interfaces with the A6 application processor.
An attacker with logical control over the ram has a powerful degree of control over any code executing on the application processor. In particular, I very strongly suspect(*) that time-of-check to time-of-use vulnerabilites would be exploitable with hardware control over the ram.
(*) Very strongly suspect: Really high confidence.
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...probably cause...
Probably 'cause I see you shtill can't passh a bar
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Re: Well then, how would you prove you've never killed anyone?
Can you prove that you are leaving the world a better place than if you had never been born?
If you cannot, does that make it a negative?
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Re: Prove you've stopped beating your wife.
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What is he doing there?
The key word here is 'elected'. District Attorney should not be a political job, where each candidate tries to prove that their cojones are larger than the others'. The DA is a government official who should serve the government of the day with free and frank advice, and professionally prosecute those cases that need to be prosecuted.
As soon as you start electing public servants, you start encouraging the wrong people to seek the position and to become performers rather than hard working servants of the public. They don't need to know anything about their job, and in the case of DAs all they need to say is "I'm tougher on crime than that guy" (while I normally use 'guy' as referring to both sexes, in this case it is pretty much always a male who performs the role of DA - maybe there's a typecasting issue there).
So take the job away from politicians who are simply hanging around until they get a judge-ship (speaking of which...). Find the most qualified person, regardless of their ability to lie in public, and get them onto the job! This whole idea of electing everyone in public office, or of getting rid of them when you elect their new boss, is poisonous and results in getting the best ACTOR for the job (Ronald Reagan comes to mind - and he wasn't even a good actor). Losing all the talent and institutional memory every three or four years is just crazy. That's not 'improved democracy', it's just encouraging all of your officials to focus on the next election rather than the job you want them to do.
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