Apple Is Selling You a Phone, Not Civil Liberties

Ooo, lawfareblog.com is feeling the sting of logical dissections of Comey's "think of the victims!" attempt at diverting examination of the FBI's real motive for wanting all communication interceptable.

And in the last couple of weeks, the bureau has shown some serious wolf. - oh, please. Syed Farook is dead. The FBI didn't stop the killing from happening. A murder victim has a phone they haven't been able to crack.

This is the same kind of argument that the US justice system used about driver's licenses: "Driving is just a privilege, folks!" therefore we can lard up on criteria for that privilege: register for the draft, pay your child support, etc etc etc. It's a pretty good scheme: find or make something (driver's license or smartphone) pretty much mandatory for a normal life. Then, designate it as "a privilege" or say "caveat emptor" about it, all the while encouraging making that thing even more of a necessity.

So one author is a former NSA employee and the other is affiliated with the arch-conservative Hoover Institution...moving on.