SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Snowden Calls "Bullshit" on FBI's Claim It Needs Apple to Unlock iPhone
NSA whistleblower says 'global technological consensus is against the FBI'
Mar 09, 2016
The FBI's claim that it cannot break into the iPhone of one of the suspected San Bernardino shooters without Apple's help is "bullshit," according to National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Speaking during a democracy conference via a live video feed from Moscow on Tuesday, Snowden said, "The FBI says Apple has the 'exclusive technical means' to unlock the phone. Respectfully, that's bullshit."
On Twitter, he added, "The global technological consensus is against the FBI," linking to a blog post by ACLU technology fellow Daniel Kahn Gillmor explaining how one of the bureau's biggest claims in the iPhone case--that Apple must disable the "auto-erase" feature, which wipes data from devices after 10 failed passcode attempts, before agents can try to break into it--is fraudulent.
[T]he truth is that even if this feature is enabled on the device in question, the FBI doesn't need to worry about it, because they can already bypass it by backing up part of the phone (called the "Effaceable Storage") before attempting to guess the passcode. [....]
[The FBI is] deliberately misleading the public (and the judiciary) to try to gain these powers. This is not how a trustworthy agency operates. We should not be fooled.
The third annual Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference, organized by the political watchdog group Common Cause, featured Snowden among numerous human rights advocates, journalists, and activists. The conference, in its second day on Wednesday, is being livestreamed here.
Apple senior executives said in February that the FBI had a chance to access the data in Syed Farook's phone if agents had not instructed San Bernardino officials to reset his iCloud password, which prompted an auto-backup that rendered the information "permanently inaccessible."
The tech company and the intelligence agency will face off again in California federal court later this month.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
The FBI's claim that it cannot break into the iPhone of one of the suspected San Bernardino shooters without Apple's help is "bullshit," according to National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Speaking during a democracy conference via a live video feed from Moscow on Tuesday, Snowden said, "The FBI says Apple has the 'exclusive technical means' to unlock the phone. Respectfully, that's bullshit."
On Twitter, he added, "The global technological consensus is against the FBI," linking to a blog post by ACLU technology fellow Daniel Kahn Gillmor explaining how one of the bureau's biggest claims in the iPhone case--that Apple must disable the "auto-erase" feature, which wipes data from devices after 10 failed passcode attempts, before agents can try to break into it--is fraudulent.
[T]he truth is that even if this feature is enabled on the device in question, the FBI doesn't need to worry about it, because they can already bypass it by backing up part of the phone (called the "Effaceable Storage") before attempting to guess the passcode. [....]
[The FBI is] deliberately misleading the public (and the judiciary) to try to gain these powers. This is not how a trustworthy agency operates. We should not be fooled.
The third annual Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference, organized by the political watchdog group Common Cause, featured Snowden among numerous human rights advocates, journalists, and activists. The conference, in its second day on Wednesday, is being livestreamed here.
Apple senior executives said in February that the FBI had a chance to access the data in Syed Farook's phone if agents had not instructed San Bernardino officials to reset his iCloud password, which prompted an auto-backup that rendered the information "permanently inaccessible."
The tech company and the intelligence agency will face off again in California federal court later this month.
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
The FBI's claim that it cannot break into the iPhone of one of the suspected San Bernardino shooters without Apple's help is "bullshit," according to National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Speaking during a democracy conference via a live video feed from Moscow on Tuesday, Snowden said, "The FBI says Apple has the 'exclusive technical means' to unlock the phone. Respectfully, that's bullshit."
On Twitter, he added, "The global technological consensus is against the FBI," linking to a blog post by ACLU technology fellow Daniel Kahn Gillmor explaining how one of the bureau's biggest claims in the iPhone case--that Apple must disable the "auto-erase" feature, which wipes data from devices after 10 failed passcode attempts, before agents can try to break into it--is fraudulent.
[T]he truth is that even if this feature is enabled on the device in question, the FBI doesn't need to worry about it, because they can already bypass it by backing up part of the phone (called the "Effaceable Storage") before attempting to guess the passcode. [....]
[The FBI is] deliberately misleading the public (and the judiciary) to try to gain these powers. This is not how a trustworthy agency operates. We should not be fooled.
The third annual Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference, organized by the political watchdog group Common Cause, featured Snowden among numerous human rights advocates, journalists, and activists. The conference, in its second day on Wednesday, is being livestreamed here.
Apple senior executives said in February that the FBI had a chance to access the data in Syed Farook's phone if agents had not instructed San Bernardino officials to reset his iCloud password, which prompted an auto-backup that rendered the information "permanently inaccessible."
The tech company and the intelligence agency will face off again in California federal court later this month.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.