[smtddr]

This arstechnica comment has it spot on and is tagged as Readers Fav:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/feds-apple-must-s...

""" That's because unlocking the iPhone was never about this case. It was about putting Apple in the position of unlocking every iPhone that the government will ever want unlocked now and into the future because if you do one you have no argument against doing the next one. And to make sure that all iPhones now and into the future can be unlocked. There, does that make more sense? """

That's really all this is about.... setting precedent and pushing legal events down a logical path that'll eventually lead to a judge ruling Apple must make backdoors into all future iOS versions. They have to push hard to get a favorable ruling quickly before everyone updates to the new iOS that Apple can't unlock at all. Because by then they'd have a much more difficult legal argument to make.

[bmelton]

And that's why, god bless 'em, good defense attorneys are the real safety net for all our freedoms, no matter how many guilty clients they get off.

Logically speaking, circumstances have allowed for the outcome of this case to be aided by iPhone data. Practically speaking, the reason they're pushing so hard in this case is because the guy is utterly indefensible -- he's a guilty-pled drug distributor, and there are undoubtedly few who would defend him. Just as sure, there are people somewhere who would prefer justice be meted as painfully as possible, and anyone who defends this guy would be a pariah in their eyes, but sticking up for the rights and fair treatment of the guilty is the greatest thing you can do to assure your own rights and fair treatment in the future.

[harshreality]

What's so indefensible about distributing drugs—meth in this case? If the defendant had been a doctor, and a customer^W patient said the right magic words about behavioral problems they were experiencing, desoxyn is legal to prescribe for ADHD.

I have no love for meth, and I have no love for street drugs with their unknown purity and potentially toxic adulterants, but asserting that the defendant is indefensible smacks of a pro-drug-war bias that mystifies me.

[TeMPOraL]

GP probably meant indefensible in the context of the law, not as a moral opinion. Defendant wasn't a doctor, customer wasn't a patient, and magic incantation was not uttered, therefore it was illegal under current laws.

[Falkon1313]

What he pled guilty to was illegal, but that's irrelevant to indefensibility because he pled guilty.

Saying that he is utterly indefensible is saying that, because he is guilty of something illegal, instead of losing some freedoms, laws and rights no longer apply at all. Although we have no evidence of anything else to charge anyone with (which legally we need to conduct a search), we might find something if we can look. That's illegal and immoral, but we can and no one will stop it because they don't want to be seen supporting him. That seems to be the sense of indefensible meant.

The crime and it's result is one thing. Setting a precedent for free-range witch-hunts is another; those have a bad history.

[bmelton]

I mean to the community at large, many of whom might point at the failed war on drugs as something the government got wrong, but still want to castigate the guy "distributing meth to the children".

To capture what I meant, I should probably have said "because the guy is utterly indefensible ... in the eyes of most."

The point though is that it is those cases in which everybody (or enough of everybody) agrees that the defendant is "bad" and must be "punished" that our rights take the biggest hit, because so few object to a warrantless search executed on a guilty meth distributor, or pedophile, or terrorist, or whatever other bogeyman is accepted as belonging 100% to the out-group.

[fleitz]

When you have more people in labour camps than North Korea anyone who gets anyone off in the US should be thrown a ticker tape parade

[DannyBee]

"This arstechnica comment has it spot on and is tagged as Readers Fav: "

No, it doesn't.

I know it's a great conspiracy theory, but it's not really likely.

It's actually significantly more likely they want to unlock the phone to try to get more evidence against the other 6 people he was charged with, probably because it's lacking.

Federal prosecutors, whatever you think of them, are generally not dumb. They know this is not the strongest argument they can make, and so if they really didn't need the evidence, they would drop it and make the argument in a context that wasn't trivial.

Seriously. They deal with tons of drug offenses every day. So do the judges.

It's much better for them to wait for a child-killing baby-eater who also has child porn on his phone or something that plays better than "yeah, uh, we want to go look for evidence against the other 6"

[plorg]

Out of naïveté I am curious: if it is the right to not incriminate yourself that prevents a defendant from being forced to unlock her phone, is it different if the evidence being sought is against a third party? That is, could someone who has been convicted on other evidence be compelled to unlock her phone if the prosecution believes there is evidence on that device to convict, say, a higher rank in a drug operation? Does the third party doctrine apply to private citizens? I am not endorsing this view, merely curious.

[HappyTypist]

IANAL, but my understanding is that you can be compelled to give evidence if you are given immunity from incrimination from any evidence you give, directly or indirectly.

[yourepowerless]

People who prattle on about conspiracy theories really having nothing to add after the snowden revelations or wikileaks. Conspiracy theory? Nope, conspiracy fact, the US government does so many secret and nefarious activities the only sane default is to assume ulterior motives.

[Amezarak]

The people talking about what the NSA got up to before Snowden weren't engaging in conspiracy theories, they were basing what they said off prior whistleblowers and limited, logical extrapolation.

A lot of what Snowden put out wasn't new at all, it just gave us particulars on what we already knew or had very good reason to suspect based on that information. (e.g. if they have one fiber tap, they probably have many fiber taps.) [1] [2]

'The Government' is not one single unitary entity. It's a massive, sprawling bureacracy, with most agencies almost completely unaware of what the other is doing. Interagency cooperation is a rarity.

US Attorneys are certainly not the NSA's minions.

[1] http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/04/70...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

[MaysonL]

US Attorneys are certainly not the NSA's minions.

Except possibly when they are arguing that nothing the NSA does should ever be revealed, and that nobody has a right to sue the NSA.

[jMyles]

...and also the reason why, in a nation of laws and not men, courts hear only actual cases and controversies, not hypotheticals.