Hacker News Reader

Comment by aniro | Hacker News Reader

>The power to collect evidence to resolve criminal cases is one of the most fundamental powers of the state.

I agree. But it is no where stated or implied that this should be an unlimited power. In fact, clear limits are placed upon that authority.

If I invent a cypher and store all of my physical written works using that cypher, can the government compel me to decrypt those works upon discovery that they lack the ability to do so? What if I taught that cypher to my family? Can they be compelled? If so, under what authority?

>You might just as productively suggest that we can't trust the USG to be a responsible state

This suggestion is inherent within the Constitution. It is framed upon a mistrust of any Government to not become tyrannical.

>therefore it should disband

uh, what? nice leap.. did you use rocket shoes to get over the gap?

View on HN

What "clear limits" are you referring to? Remember, this case is about the limits judges have in compelling the production of evidence. What are the limits on that authority?

It's unclear whether you will eventually be compelled into decrypting documents. One circuit says you can't be, because of 5A. But that ruling was situational, and other courts might rule otherwise. Certainly I don't personally agree with the logic that compelled decryption is necessarily testimonial in nature, any more than opening a safe for which only you have the combination is testimony. The primary purpose of the ban on coerced self-testimony is to prevent bogus confessions elicited under torture. That's not at issue here.

I don't understand your "inherent within the Constitution" argument. The Constitution says what it says. I'm citing it.

It is my understanding that the central issue is not the judges authority to compel evidence be turned over to the state. The State is already in possession of the evidence, it is simply in a format that is unintelligible. Apple is not in possession of any evidence.

The issue is whether a third party can be compelled to provide access to that evidence in order to make it intelligible and therefore meaningful. The combination to the lock (which apple claims they would be forced to construct, as it does not yet exist. The government seems to have accepted the veracity of this claim when they agreed to perform the labor if handed the tooling).

What is the purpose of explicitly stating 4A if we can simply trust the government to be a good actor?

It is inherent in the statement of explicit restraint that there is not trust.

Preamble to the Bill of Rights -

"The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution."

I like that they use confidence.. it implies a matter of shades or degrees. Trust seems to imply something much more B&W.

(http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_tra...)

I'm sorry, but this still isn't a coherent argument. The Fourth Amendment delegates to the court the decision over whether a search is or isn't reasonable. It is a court that has ordered this particular search. The court is part of the government.

If you can't trust any part of the government, the Fourth Amendment is immaterial: you can't trust the entity to whom is entrusted the power to adjudicate reasonableness.

Its an electronic search of a device in the FBI's possession. Clearly this is a modern issue that exceeds the language of the Constitution etc. Its a fair question - how much extra work can a manufacturer be compelled to do for the FBI, to enable them to understand the device/information they have already seized? The word 'search' is being stretched to the breaking point here.

Fair point. What are the laws on producing evidence, whereby the evidence constitutes a challenge to review?

E.g. If I was ordered to produce logs that may be evidence in a case, and I only had and only produced a 10GB+ text log with a single line the warrant was interested in. Can a warrant order me to parse the log to find the relevant information?

Furthermore, at what point does a digital space become similar to a physical space? When I can carry 3 hard drives that can contain almost as much information as the Library of Congress print collections, is it reasonable to think of them as "one thing" for legal purposes? In that if you have access to the physical container, you have access to all its contents?

If I remember, Lavabit attempted just such a "Big Sky" tactic with the logs (or a similar set of files) in their case and it was deemed a transparent attempt to obfuscate.

That was the SSL key delivered on 11 pages of printout in 4pt type. A bit less arguable than compelling someone to find the needle in their haystack for you.

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-lavabit-melted-do...

I do not concede the point that "electronics" somehow bring controversies outside the scope of the Constitution. The Constitution didn't foresee electrical power, automobiles, or telephony either. Human air travel was a fantasy when the Constitution was drafted, and we didn't have to amend it to deal with airspace controversies.

What I do think is that people who are intimately involved with new technologies will tend to believe that the complexities of their technologies must somehow swamp the Constitution.

I wish that wasn't true. But govt seems to think that way. Personally I think searching my laptop ought to be covered under freedom of the press, but it isn't. Email should get the same protections as snail mail, but no love there.

No, its not the technologists who don't get it.

Anyway to the point: we need to clarify if searching my house, and searching my person, and searching my laptop, and searching my cloud-based email history are in the same class. Hell, even searching my breath or blood isn't protected like they should be. Its a long way from clear, what Constitutional protections are extended to modern situation and which aren't. Technology has challenged everything we thought we knew.

The power of the courts is kept in check by the Legislature. They are not above elements of mistrust.

The court is compelling a third party to perform an act that really isn't part of a search and seizure of items.

Search and Seizure as defined by 4A is over and done with. The Prosecution has searched the "places to be searched" and is in possession of the "persons or things to be seized."

Now can it compel Apple to make them useful? (Potentially useful, as even the State has argued there likely isn't really any useful evidence there anyway.. sorta makes this whole thing look like a dog and pony show.)

I don't think the legislature helps you here, because one of the very first things the legislature did, when it was populated with the framers and signers of the Constitution, was to delegate to the courts the power to compel third parties to assist investigations.

And Apple is arguing that the "All Writs Act" to which you refer is not authority to demand whatever you damn well please, from anyone, at any time. They are arguing that there are well established limits to that authority and that the judiciary is overstepping its bounds here and need defer judgement to elected representatives (the legislature).

I don't think this is accurate. To wit: I don't think Apple's argument is that the limits they're seeking are well established (they are not), only that they are important and sound.

Either way, Congress isn't a check on the Supreme Court. It's typically rather the other way around.

Application of the All Writs Act in this manner is unprecedented. The conditions under which it may be applied are well defined and are not met for this application.

The Supreme Court isn't a factor at this stage.

"Typically" you are correct. The formal method for checking the power of the Judiciary is for Congress to remove Judges from the bench.

Apple is arguing that All Writs doesn't grant the authority that is being used. If that authority is to be sought then it will have to come from Congress. At least one Judge agrees.

That's the nature of the AWA; it's a catch-all. Every new technology or social institution that appears is going to create a new "unprecedented" use of the AWA. But the underlying principle of the AWA is so simple that it was one of the first things that came before Congress: the people are entitled to every person's evidence, and if a third party stands in the way of that, the courts have the right to compel their assistance.

And there are limits to the assistance the court may request.

Creation of new works is just such a limit.

If there is not a limit, then what the courts may compel as "assistance" becomes absurd.

This is the argument Apple is making and it is the foundation of the opinion of at least one Judge that has ruled against use of the AWA to compel the unlocking of a phone.

I agreed with your points until the last. :( Assumption of good intentions on the part of all comments usually produces a more productive discussion.

I didn't intend to be inflammatory (at least any more so than the parent), merely point out that a logical leap had been taken that was not entirely faithful (imho) on the part of the writer.

It is certainly not "mistrust government" ergo "disband government", especially when the government in question was formed near entirely upon the notion that a government should exist in a perpetual state of mistrust.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com