[V2hLe0ThslzRaV2]

The FBI's chief of its elite hacking unit has a clear conflict of interest in stating what the status of hacking into the phone related to the San Bernadino shooting -- and unless the OIG confirmed the vendor's status at that point forensically, verbal statements to me are meaningless.

Saying that the vendor was "90 percent of the way toward a solution" could mean anything; for example, they had the hack, but were testing it to see if would work for all iPhone models.

[rgbrenner]

The vendor the FBI contracted with to develop the exploit says they demonstrated it on March 20th. The FBI says they demonstrated on March 20th. In fact, they postponed a court hearing to attend the demonstration, and the following day informed the court. This is also 3 weeks after Comey's testimony to congress.

If you're going to throw out a conspiracy theory, you should have something to back it up.

[hinkley]

Imagine you’re the attorney for the other side and you asked the agent under oath if they were tainted by information they were sworn not to reveal.

For some of these agencies I would almost expect them to, let’s say embellish or fabricate, under oath to protect highly classified information. Does that not make them a tainted witness if they have to speak in half truths under oath?

The only way to get an absolutely fair trial would be if all of the information were declassified, or the judge, jury, and lawyers had security clearance. And who without a high clearance could judge what is pertinent to the case?

I think we have always known that justice and secrets clash, which is why we have (had) watchdog groups as a compromise.

[V2hLe0ThslzRaV2]

My statements purely state that the FBI is very aware of how to take actions and make statements that are true, but misleading. What is the issue is that the OIG took statements that were clearly meaningless -- but assigned meaning to them.

In fact, if you read the report, which includes these statements, "In the (FBI elite hacking unit) Chief’s view, the fact that he was not asked for help sooner was not a mistake in judgment or communication breakdown on CEAU’s part, but rather the result of a long-standing policy that the ROU Chief understood created a “line in the sand ”against using national security tools in criminal cases." -- which if true, given the events were a known terrorist attack, would have made the events a national security matter.

[oculusthrift]

so easy to dismiss something by calling it a "conspiracy theory". The only conspiracy is by the FBI on the American people, with their warrantless surveillance. How about the fact they lie around 100 pct of the time about these matters?