Creation of Homeland Security not enough?
Office of Total Information Awareness left for the day?
Is the heart-shaped flower of police militarization wilting?
Did D.A.R.P.A. go dark?
Has the Patriot Act pooped out?
Nope. Nor have the corporations and power brokers of the surveillance state yet tapped out American taxpayers.
In other words, the FBI does not need the Genius Bar.
From Feds to street-corner cops and home security companies, law enforcement has more than enough control, technology, and boots-on-the-ground for continued counterterrorism success. And probably lots of fun civil liberties secrets, too.
The FBI has all the tools it needs and plenty more to keep American citizens safe. And when I say “safe,” I mean relatively safe, just as we’ve been since September, 2001. Stuff will happen; that’s just the trajectory of history, especially when we’ve been messing around with it as much as we have. But in trying to force Apple to write new software that will help them unlock an iPhone belonging to the perpetrator of the San Bernardino terrorist attacks, the Bureau is overstepping its constitutional bounds. Apple worries that, if they comply, anyone who can grab or mimic their software will have access to every confidence Americans hope to keep electronically secure. Read more
