Hacker News Reader

Comment by studentrob | Hacker News Reader

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance sums up the DOJ's position quite succinctly. Emphasis added

> "Apple has created a technology which is default disk encryption. It didn't exist before. It exists now. Apple is now claiming a right of privacy about a technology that it just created. That right of privacy didn't exist before Apple created the technology." [1]

Wrong. The first and fourth amendments grant rights to privacy. The exact transcripts of what we say in the privacy of our homes, prior to a warranted wiretap or without witness testimony, are not the subject of law enforcement's investigation. Our entire history of digital communications should not be open for government surveillance. It would be overreach to try to implement, and anyway it is impossible to guarantee without destroying the US tech industry and turning us into a big brother state.

[1] https://youtu.be/g1GgnbN9oNw?t=4h46m22s

View on HN

The fourth amendment specifically requires a warrant to violate someone's privacy. In all of the cases at hand a warrant has been issued.

There really isn't a fourth amendment issue.

You're right, and thanks for correcting me.

I do still disagree with the District Attorney's statement. We can write something on a piece of paper and burn it, or think something in our heads, and keep it private. That this is now possible with digital communications via encryption is not a new right, it is simply a new means to protect that right. Further, Apple didn't invent encryption, and this statement further shows how little the DOJ understands about technology.

Vance seems to be confusing the right to privacy with the ability to actually enforce it. Apparently, a "right" to privacy is all well and good, as long it can be casually violated and a warrant served later. As soon as the mechanism protecting your privacy has real teeth, then it's a problem.

> That right of privacy didn't exist before Apple created the technology.

Wait, is he actually arguing that the right of privacy didn't exist until a few years ago? There's literally decades of precedent, including digital precedent, for a right to privacy.

The FBI should offer to unlock the phone only if they arrest Hillary;)

The right to privacy stops when you put lead in a bunch of people. There isn't a textual right to privacy in the Constitution in the first place; it's a right that arises from the interpretation of other rights.

What's at stake here is the power of government to compel testimony. They already have the phone, but they lack the power to compel its unlocking.

> The right to privacy stops when you put lead in a bunch of people.

That's not how rights work.

Uh, in the case of search and seizure, it explicitly is. The Fourth Amendment provides a standard for searching the property of criminals. Such searches are carried out routinely with no issues. There are other standards for "violating" other rights to privacy also.

I'm not saying criminals don't deserve rights. In fact, what's at stake here is that the Fifth Amendment does protect a mass murderer from revealing his passcode, so I'm not sure what you and all these downvoters are going on about. If criminals didn't have rights there wouldn't be an issue here.

If the passcode on the phone were crackable, it would be absolutely 100% legal to search it. And that kind of thing happens routinely. The issue at stake is not searching the phone, but compelling Apple to help with the search.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com