Basically Every Single Presidential Candidate Is Totally Clueless As To What's At Stake In The Apple / FBI Fight

from the you're-all-wrong dept

I guess this isn't that surprising, but as the big legal fight heated up this week between Apple and the Justice Department over whether or not Apple can be forced to create a backdoor to let the FBI access the contents of Syed Farook's iPhone, all of the major Presidential candidates have weighed in... and they're all wrong. Donald Trump is getting the most attention. Starting earlier this week he kept saying that Apple should just do what the FBI wants, and then he kicked it up a notch this afternoon saying that everyone should boycott Apple until it gives in to the FBI. Apparently, Trump doesn't even have the first clue about the actual issue at stake, in terms of what a court can compel a company to do, and what it means for our overall security.

Meanwhile, most of the other candidates didn't go as far, but tried to stupidly pretend there was some sort of compromise between the two positions. Bernie Sanders did the "on the one hand/on the other hand/I won't actually take a stand" thing:

“I am very fearful in America about Big Brother. And that means not only the federal government getting into your emails or knowing what books you’re taking out of the library, or private corporations knowing everything there is to know about you in terms of your health records, your banking records, your consumer practices,” Sanders said.

“On the other hand, what I also worry about is the possibility of another terrorist attack against our country. And frankly, I think there is a middle ground that can be reached.”

If you think there's a "middle ground" you don't understand the issue.

Hillary Clinton did the same thing, trying to straddle the line by admitting a backdoor sounds problematic, but really, if the nerds just nerd harder, can't they figure something out:

Clinton called the situation a “difficult dilemma.” She discussed some of the main concerns Apple has “about opening the door, creating what they call a backdoor into encryption.” And she pointed out that the capability could be abused by authoritarian regimes like “the Chinese, Russian, Iranian governments” who want the same kind of access.

But she concluded with a favorite law enforcement talking point: that the smart people in America can surely solve this problem and find a way to help the FBI access encrypted communications with a little brainstorming and teamwork. “As smart as we are, there’s got to be some way on a very specific basis we could try to help get information around crimes and terrorism,”

Again, the thing that they don't get is that the "nerd problem" here is: How can you make a security vulnerability that only can be used by the good guys? That's impossible. Creating a security vulnerability opens things up to the bad guys. Period.

And, of course, neither of those answers tackle the actual issue at stake, which is to what level the US government can force a company to hack its own customers and undermine its own systems' security. They're really answering a different question. Because either they don't understand the issue or they don't actually want to be pinned down on it.

The rest of the Republican field basically did the same thing as Sanders and Clinton. On the one hand this, on the other that. It's classic "don't pin me down" so I don't piss off one constituency politicking. First up, Ted Cruz:

"Apple has a serious argument that they should not be forced to put a backdoor in every cellphone everyone has," said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, echoing Cook's concerns that complying with the court would create a "backdoor" into Apple's encryption that others could exploit.

But in this case, said Senator Cruz, the FBI's interests override Apple's worries about security.

"This concerns the phone of one of the San Bernardino [terrorists], and for law enforcement to get a judicial search order, that's consistent with the Fourth Amendment,” said Cruz.

He also said:

“They have a binding search order,” Ted Cruz said, referring to Apple. “I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can protect ourselves from terrorists and protect our civil rights.”

Yeah, again, that's not the issue. Yes, they have a court order. And that is fine, if Apple had full access to the content and just needed to turn that over. Everyone agrees with that. But that's not the issue here. It's whether or not Apple can be compelled to go much, much further, and build a way to hack their own customers, removing security features, so that the FBI can more easily access encrypted content.

How about Marco Rubio? Same on the one hand/on the other hand bullshit:

“If you create a backdoor, there is a very reasonable possibility that a criminal gang could figure out what the backdoor is," Mr. Rubio said. “We're going to have to work with the tech industry to figure out a way forward on encryption that allows us some capability to access information – especially in an emergency circumstances.”

So, we need to work together to allow some capability... that Rubio himself admits will lead to "a very real possibility that a criminal gang" will exploit. Guess what the larger risk is: a criminal gang targeting your data, or being caught in a terrorist attack? It's the former, not the latter, and yet Rubio is pretending they're the same.

Next up to bat, John Kasich. He's even worse. Not only does he not understand the issue, he doesn't even give one of those on the one hand/on the other hand answers, suggesting he doesn't even know the key part of all of this.

"I don't think it's an example of government overreach to say that, you know, we had terrorists here on our soil and we've got to understand more detail about who they may have been communicating with."

It's not an overreach for them to try to understand. But that's not the debate. The debate is if in trying to collect every possible bit of content, they have the power to commandeer a tech company and have it build tools to undermine that company's own security systems.

Ben Carson, shows his usual level of confusion, suggesting Apple is only doing this because it doesn't trust the government and then giving another wishy-washy answer:

“I think that Apple, and probably a lot of other people, don’t necessarily trust the government these days,” Carson said. “And there’s probably very good reason for people not trust the government. But we’re going to have to get over that because right now we’re faced with tremendous threats, and individuals, radical jihadists, that want to destroy us. And we’re going to have to weigh these things, one against the other.”

“I believe that what we need is a public-private partnership when it comes to all of these technical things and cyber security because we’re all at risk in a very significant way,” Carson said. “So it’s going to be a matter of people learning to trust each other, which means Apple needs to sit down with trustworthy members of the government, and that may have to wait until the next election, I don’t know, but we’ll see.”

This response makes absolutely no sense, and is almost self-contradictory. He's basically admitting that the government might misuse such powers, and even suggests the Obama government in particular would do so. But his government, of course, would be fine. If you're a Presidential candidate and your argument for a powerful surveillance tool is "well I don't trust the other guy to use it, but you can trust me..." you've already lost. And, of course, Carson's answer similarly misses the point altogether. The issue is not about Apple's "mistrust" of the government, but rather whether or not Apple can be compelled to undermine the safety and security of all of its customers. And yeah, "all of these technical things and cyber security." Clear as mud.

I'm not quite sure how, but it looks like Jeb Bush has managed to avoid answering a direct question on this issue, but it's not hard to guess where he'd come down. In the past he's talked about how encryption enables "evildoers":

If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job — while protecting civil liberties — to make sure that evildoers aren’t in our midst.

And, in an earlier debate he did one of those non-answer things where he says undermining encryption could harm business, but law enforcement is important... so leadership. Really.

Bush: If you can encrypt messages, ISIS can, over these platforms, and we have no ability to have a cooperative relationship —

Moderator: Do you ask or do you order?

Bush: Well, if the law would change, yeah. But I think there has to be recognition that if we — if we are too punitive, then you’ll go to other — other technology companies outside the United States. And what we want to do is to control this. We also want to dominate this from a commercial side. So there’s a lot of balanced interests. But the president leads in this regard. That’s what we need. We need leadership, someone who has a backbone and sticks with things, rather than just talks about them as though anything matters when you’re talking about amendments that don’t even actually are part of a bill that ever passed.

So, yeah. Basically all of the candidates are absolutely awful on this issue. That's not encouraging.

Filed Under: all writs act, apple, ben carson, bernie sanders, donald trump, election, encryption, hillary clinton, jeb bush, john kasich, marco rubio, presidents, ted cruz
Companies: apple

Cracked Writer Questioned By Secret Service Agents Over Humorous Article About Kidnapping President's Daughters

from the someone's-still-reading-the-entire-internet-every-day dept

Defenders of national surveillance have often asserted that the government (specifically, its intelligence and investigative agencies) isn't interested in your "emails/phone calls to Grandma" or your "cat videos." It's a stupid dodge which attempts to portray internet surveillance as only focused on legitimate threats to national security.

But the surveillance is omnipresent, and even those who would have honestly felt the government was unconcerned with their internet activities sometimes find themselves being questioned by Secret Service members over humorous articles that dared to invoke the word "President."

Cracked writer Daniel O'Brien, due to certain preoccupations with very specific subject matter, found himself chatting with two government agents due to a previously published humorous article (since removed, but archived here) that dealt with kidnapping the president's daughter. This, combined with research for his book, apparently got him flagged in a national security database.

I wrote a book about president fighting called How to Fight Presidents, which just came out today. It's a comedic nonfiction book that teaches you, appropriately enough, how to beat the crap out of every single lunatic who ran this country.

Or not every president. People who buy the book (which you can do right here or here) might notice that I've curiously left out every president that's still alive currently. Well, when you do the kind of research associated with this subject matter (Google "Bill+Clinton+weaknesses"), certain flags are raised, flags that the government takes notice of…

I won't get into the specifics of the article, but it was sort of a "how to" guide and has since been taken down (I've no doubt someone in the comments will clarify which article I'm talking about). In addition to having to take the article down, I also get stopped and pulled aside at airports five out of six times that I fly.

The end result was the Secret Service contacting Cracked's HR department in hopes of reaching O'Brien to "discuss" his "lightly treasonous" article. O'Brien's first contact with the Secret Service was via a phone conversation with an agent who explained (rather sympathetically) that while the agency had the capability to recognize satire, it had the duty to run out every ground ball, so to speak.

"I just mean I'm not some, I don't know, government dud. Believe it or not, I've got a sense of humor; most of us do around here. I know it's a comedy website, I know you're doing jokes. It just so happens that it's my job to pay attention when certain ... concepts are brought up online. That article, combined with your fascination with fighting presidents ... well, that's the kind of thing I need to know about."

However, his next stop was a trip to downtown Los Angeles to meet with two Secret Service agents who weren't quite as blessed in the humor department. The two agents were clearly taking the situation as seriously as anyone can take subject matter that describes President Jimmy Carter's daughter escaping a kidnapping vessel by "slicing through the ocean like a goddamned dolphin."

When O'Brien attempted to defend his humorous article by stating it was full of "impractical" and "useless" advice, the agents took it as an admission that he knew plenty of practical and useful ways to pull off the kidnapping of a First Child. The innate ability of the agents to use his own answers against him, as well as their apparent innate lack of a sense of humor, led to O'Brien being asked unanswerable questions like this one:

"In entry #2," Agent Hardass began, "you point out a number of common mistakes people make when breaking into the White House, including, quote, leaving either too much or not enough semen around, end quote. Why did you say that?"

Nothing makes a joke funnier than a long explanation of what's funny about it, and apparently O'Brien was forced to live through this particular form of post-joke hell for a majority of the two hours he was questioned.

If you've ever wondered what it's like to watch comedy as a concept die, I can assure you it's me sitting in a freezing room explaining to two angry government agents why "murder-boner" is an inherently more richly comedic pairing of words than "death-erection."

After exhausting the comedy-or-threat possibilities of O'Brien's article, the agents went on to more easily-answered (but equally difficult to prove) questions like, "Are you a terrorist?" and "Are you affiliated with any terrorist groups?" And... "Do you have the skeleton of Pocahontas stashed in your closet?"

So, all's well that ends well, I suppose, but O'Brien will likely be rewarded for his anti-presidential writings with extra attention at airports and a heightened sense of (mostly justifiable) paranoia. The government may not care about cat videos and grandma, but it still takes every joke about certain subject matter very seriously.

The NSA (and others) may claim they grab more data than content, but all this limitation really does is ensure your content and data will be completely divorced from their context. O'Brien wrote obviously satirical articles about presidents and had to go explain humor to Secret Service agents. Anyone else who says something that trips the surveillance triggers is now a potential national security target, and at the mercy of agencies that can work backwards through thousands of datapoints and content snippets, completely free to construct their own narrative from the context-free information just sitting around on their servers.

Filed Under: cracked, daniel o'brien, humor, presidents, secret service

DailyDirt: Eating Like A King...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some people eat to live. Others live to eat. Since there's a pretty wide range between those two extremes, here are just a few quick links to some examples of interesting eating habits.

• The National Archives has a historical record of, among other things, the favorite foods of many US Presidents. Richard Nixon's last meal at the White House was some pineapple slices with cottage cheese and a glass of milk..? [url]
• Airlines have tried to offer healthier food options for travelers, but a lot of flyers are sticking to salty snacks and comfort foods. Alaska Airlines' best-selling meal is a quarter-pound cheeseburger. [url]
• Texas has recently ended its tradition of offering a "last request" meal to inmates on death row after a state lawmaker complained about a meal request that seemed excessive. The last meal that did it: two chicken-fried steaks with gravy and sliced onions; a triple-patty bacon cheeseburger; a cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapenos; a bowl of fried okra with ketchup; one pound of barbecued meat with half a loaf of white bread; three fajitas; a meat-lover�s pizza; one pint of Blue Bell Ice Cream; a slab of peanut-butter fudge with crushed peanuts; and three root beers. (The meal wasn't eaten.) [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's cooking at StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: airline food, death row, food, last meals, presidents
Companies: alaska airlines

Should The Next President Use A Computer?

from the series-of-tubes dept

Much has been made of John McCain's status as a self-proclaimed "computer illiterate." Juxtaposed with his rival, the Blackberry-wielding, iPod-listening Barack Obama, McCain's inexperience with all things digital have raised concerns that he is out of touch with normal Americans. Although McCain is reportedly attempting to use computers more often, a bigger question remains unsolved: should the President of the United States use a computer?

Lee Gomes at the Wall Street Journal seems to think the best policy is to "avoid computers." Among such significant insights as any computer should remain outside the Oval Office "since it wouldn't match the furniture," is a recommendation that the President be limited to 20 minutes of computer time "to keep up with the common folk" by reading blogs, playing Solitaire or watching YouTube. But, don't get carried away! "The severe time rationing is necessary because a computer, far from making you more productive, instead loads you down with things to do, and it's important for the machine to know who is boss."

It is slightly shocking that the WSJ would have you believe that computers are only good for keeping up-to-date on the latest cute cat videos (as long as you don't get bogged down in pop-ups -- which Gomes warns is how most computer users waste away their time). Of course the President should delegate menial tasks to staffers, but Gomes and others who think that technology is peripheral to the role of the Commander-in-Chief miss the point. Computer literacy isn't about "being in touch" with the "common folk," it is about understanding the foundation of the knowledge economy. The next administration will need to correctly address important policies with technology at their root, and if the leader doesn't understand the fundamental potential and differences of digital technology, the results will be much more catastrophic than wasting time deleting spam.

Filed Under: computers, presidents, technology