A Philadelphia judge has ruled that Google must comply with FBI search warrants for Gmail messages stored outside the US, if the requests are issued as part of a domestic fraud investigation.
The Independent: Google ordered to share Gmail messages from non-US users with FBI »
THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE proudly announced the first FBI terror arrest of the Trump administration on Tuesday: an elaborate sting operation that snared a 25-year-old Missouri man who had no terrorism contacts besides the two undercover FBI agents who paid him to buy hardware supplies they said was for a bomb — and who at one point pulled a knife on him and threatened his family.
There have been many reports (and at least one documentary film) about the FBI framing people who probably are not that dangerous at all – just to be seen doing something.
Law enforcement should focus on real terrorist, not creating their own ones.
The Intercept » Trump’s first terror arrest: A broke stoner the FBI threatened at knifepoint »
The Intercept » Secret docs reveal: President Trump has inherited an FBI with vast hidden powers »
Today, the FBI becomes a global adversary and enemy to every security-conscious computer user and to every IT security professional, similar to how the mass surveillance agencies are treated. The FBI has requested, and been granted, the lawful power (in the US) to intrude into any computer in the entire world.
Falkvinge: Today, the FBI becomes the enemy of every computer user and every security professional worldwide »
“We have never, in our nation’s history as far as I can tell, seen a warrant so utterly sweeping,” federal public defender Colin Fieman said in a hearing at the end of October, according to the transcript. Fieman is representing several defendants in affected cases.
Motherboard: The FBI Hacked Over 8,000 Computers In 120 Countries Based on One Warrant »
When the FBI asked a court to force Apple to help crack the encrypted iPhone 5c of San Bernardino shooter Rizwan Farook in February, Bureau director James Comey assured the public that his agency’s intrusive demand was about one terrorist’s phone, not repeated access to iPhone owners’ secrets. But now eight months have passed, and the FBI has in its hands another locked iPhone that once belonged to another dead terrorist. Which means they may have laid the groundwork for another legal showdown with Apple.
Wired: The FBI wants to get into the locked iPhone of another dead terrorist »
From the Associated Press Washington desk:
The FBI said Monday it successfully used a mysterious technique without Apple Inc.’s help to hack into the iPhone used by a gunman in a mass shooting in California, effectively ending a pitched court battle between the Obama administration and one of the world’s leading technology companies.
The government asked a federal judge to vacate a disputed order forcing Apple to help the FBI break into the iPhone, saying it was no longer necessary. The court filing in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California provided no details about how the FBI did it or who showed it how.
Justice Department cracks iPhone; withdraws legal action »
But is this really a mystery? I wrote about this some three weeks ago. That was when the ACLU demonstrated that breaking locked iPhones is almost common knowledge in the tech community:
One of the FBI’s Major Claims in the iPhone Case Is Fraudulent »
Never the less many questions remain unanswered. And the FBI is not about to open up. Ars Technica:
Apple likely can’t force FBI to disclose how it got data from seized iPhone »
Here, it is important to understand what this really has been all about:
[The FBI] is not as interested in solving the problem as they are in getting a legal precedent, [Richard] Clarke said. “Every expert I know believes the NSA could crack this phone. They want the precedent that government could compel a device manufacturer to let the government in.”
Now, what about Apple? Have all of this bruised the iPhones reputation when it comes to security?
Well, it shouldn’t. As mentioned, there already are known ways to break into a locked iPhone.
But facts is not the same as the public perception. The general notion is that this is something entirely new.
And, as a matter of fact, the authorities can open up a locked iPhone. Apple do have a very real public relations problem on its’ hands.
Inevitably, Apple will have to beef up the iPhones security shortly. That may, in turn, lead to new conflicts with the FBI & Co.
/ HAX
Somewhere on the Internet, someone wrote “The purpose of terrorism is to provoke the target government into curtailing civil liberties, so more people become radicalized.”
Close enough. Google “the purpose of terrorism”. The Internets is full of thought-provoking discussion about what the fuck is going on. Or at least, opinions about it.
Terrorism is a wide specter, in many ways. Now, we are waiting to find out how governments are going to react to the Brussels attacks. They will. They have to. That is what politicians do. But… how should they react?
It happens to be that national governments are catastrophically bad at sharing information with each other. At least, when it comes to information that might be a bit sensitive. They simply cannot let everyone else in on everything. They will not do that.
And the EU can do nothing. (I’m not saying that the EU should, absolutely not – but it is noteworthy that it can not. National security is strictly national competence. That’s the rule.)
So there is this bold idea floating around: A European FBI.
In other words, a federal and centralized European police. All information would belong to an EU institution in some Belgian suburb. It would have its nose in everything. Like they say in American crimis… “Oh, shit. The Feds are here.”
Newer the less, it would be a radical way to get all of the European police in line, I guess. And think about all the money they can save by having a common European police uniform.
On the one hand, it is obvious that someone must make national government’s security agencies share relevant information — about common enemies, at least.
On the other hand, who should handle this? Not the Commission itself, I hope. So, give it to Europol, they will say. And right there we also need to give Europol full operative authority in all EU member states.
Europol is the European Union’s law enforcement agency whose main goal is to help achieve a safer Europe for the benefit of all EU citizens. We do this by assisting the European Union’s Member States in their fight against serious international crime and terrorism.
— Europols boilerplate
Europol is largely a post-macho bureaucracy, with some support for member states in need to coordinate specific work and operations. But it’s not very operative in itself. (Europol didn’t even bother to look into the possibility that the NSA hacked the SWIFT bank transaction system, mentioned in the Snowden files. Not even after being asked about it by media and in the European Parliament.)
Should we put these people in charge of running European police? I’m not even sure that Europol would like to. They lack the ambition.
Maybe something… new! And there you have it: Europolice. The only police you will ever need.
Then anything can happen. There will be disasters like a centralized procurement process for toilet paper to all European police stations. There will be a federal authority running its own investigations parallel to local law enforcement. And federal crimes must be handled in a unified way across all of the EU — how do you make that happen?
There will have to be field offices in cities all over the continent, with a partly international crew.
Europolice: Keeper of all information. Online with all national records. Connected to the mass surveillance network. Bureaucracy with operative authority. A single point for failure. Under at best vague democratic oversight.
Are you really sure about doing this?
/ HAX
“[The FBI] is not as interested in solving the problem as they are in getting a legal precedent,” Clarke said. “Every expert I know believes the NSA could crack this phone. They want the precedent that government could compel a device manufacturer to let the government in.”
