CNN today reports that while the FBI did not find anything new on the San Bernardino iPhone 5c that it unlocked without Apple’s help, it has “produced data the FBI didn’t have before.” Essentially, not finding anything new on the device is what the FBI needed to know in order to answer some of its remaining questions regarding the case.
Because of data on the iPhone 5c – or lack thereof – the FBI is now confident that terrorist Syed Farook did not make contact with any other plotters. Specifically, the FBI was concerned about an 18-minute gap that it had yet to fill in regarding Farook’s location after the attacks. Now, having gained access to the iPhone, the FBI is more confident that Farook and his wife acted alone in their actions.
CNN reports:
Investigators are now more confident that terrorist Syed Farook didn’t make contact with another plotter during an 18-minute gap that the FBI said was missing from their time line of the attackers’ whereabouts after the mass shooting, the officials said. The phone has helped investigators address lingering concern that the two may have help, perhaps from friends and family, the officials said.
On the iPhone, the FBI did not find any evidence of contacts with other ISIS supports or members by Farook, nor did they find the use of any encrypted communicants during that 18-minute window. According to the report, the FBI views this as “valuable to the probe.”
However, because it didn’t find any “new” information on the iPhone 5c, the FBI is still left to figure out what exactly Farook was doing during that 18-minute gap, but the bureau is said to be following more leads and analyzing more data.
Earlier this month it was reported that the FBI had found nothing of “real significance” on the iPhone 5c used by Farook, which many insiders expected to be the case. Nevertheless, it appears that the FBI doesn’t regret going after Apple in an effort to gain access to the device as it was able to rule out suspicions that Farook was in communications with others after the attack.
Earlier today, the FBI and Apple once again appeared before Congress to discuss encryption. You can watch that video here.
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What if this wasn’t their only iPhone? Lots of people have burner phones it doesn’t take an FBI agent to know that!
It wasn’t. They burned the burner beforehand. (I could post links but the Internet is filled with articles giving the whole picture).
“It still helped the FBI”…but did it help the American people? It did not. The FBI doesn’t exist to help the FBI; the FBI exists to help the American people. This case has left iPhone users LESS safe, since it exposed an existing vulnerability potentially left unfixed and blew open a gaping hole in jurisprudence of 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendment policy that impacts ALL Americans. (I’d argue, given my own foundational beliefs, it also impacted 2A rights as well; the “arms” that the People have natural right to are not merely FIREarms, it is truly the technological prowess and knowledge behind those devices that is protected, not merely the physical objects and accessories themselves. Crypto is as much an “armament” of protection and safety as a firearm in a world increasingly giving over to the bit rather than the atom. Even the US Govt had seen fit to proscribe crypto as export-restricted “arms” in the past. See: Clinton Administration)
Odd that President Obama presided over this charade, given his past bluster and scholarly expertise.
You had me nodding until the end. I don’t know if you know this, but while we can (and should) blame Obama for nominating Holder, the president of the US does not run the Justice Department, and has almost zero day-to-day interaction of it. This has been true since roughly Nixon. It’s as independent and free of presidential oversight agency as the Post Office.
You take exception to my last line…and then cause me to absolutely take exception to your last line. That just is not true, at all. The Post Office, yes, is actually an independent entity. As is the Federal Reserve Bank. However, the Department of Justice is absolutely NOT independent, nor free of presidential oversight! It is an Executive Branch entity with Cabinet-level Presidential access (Attorney General). Certainly, Presidents can decide they do not want to be involved in day-to-day management of the DOJ, that’s the POTUS’ prerogative, however failure within the DOJ ultimately falls upon the President. The President absolutely DOES have control the entire way down the Executive Branch, with very limited exceptions (Investigators Generals, who have Congressional oversight).
Within the past 5 administrations (and even the Nixon administration), there have been circumstances in which the Administration’s role within oversight of the DOJ has been spotlighted. Specifically with Holder during Obama and under Bush in dealing with terrorism and the Iraq War. In fact, President Obama, with a stroke of his pen, could reschedule marijuana and effectively end the War on Drugs as it is currently done, as he controls the DEA (who holds the power of scheduling). I only use this as an example because several FactCheck sites have highlighted that within the past several weeks after President Obama and Eric Holder have made comments (that were held to be factually untrue or misleading) about requiring Congress to federally reschedule marijuana. Nancy Reagan, famously, had President Reagan push for significant changes in policy at the DEA and ATF over the drug war. Further, as you did mention with respect to Holder–who resigned to avoid being impeached, Obama ALSO nominated and sat Loretta Lynch. It has been widely reported that Lynch has been one of the most vocal figures within the Obama Administration in discussions with Apple CEO Tim Cook. In fact, reports from the private White House summit that Cook attended, also attended by Lynch, that were leaked by Vice indicated that Lynch was partner to Cook’s most testy exchanges on the matter. Clearly Obama should have known his nominees position on the matter before nominating her, and she absolutely serves at his whim. He, as a Constitutional law professor, cannot escape accountability on this, nor should be allowed to.
I disagree. Remember when Obama said that as long as he is president, the DoJ will not proceed with federal cases against people in states with Medical or Recreational Cannabis for breaking the federal drug laws, which say cannabis has no medical use and is just as bad as heroin? I do. A few years later they started doing it again, and then Obama switched back to the old tactic “think of the children” and “well we can’t just let drug dealers get away now can we?” — Obama could take a stance on encryption if he wanted to; and being a Democrat, he should. But he hasn’t really, aside from some doublespeak.
“This case has left iPhone users LESS safe…”
Get your head out of your arse because yours, like everyone else’s comments has absolutely NOTHING to do with the American people and everything to do with rampant fanboyism of the flagship American company. You know as well as I do that if that phone ran Android and was made by Samsung, LG or any other non-American company you would be marching down the streets DEMANDING the American Government and the FBI did the patriotic, American thing and brought those foreign companies to task FOR THE SAFETY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Only in America would folk value a high entity like Apple, who are only in it to empty your pockets, over an entity which exists to protect them.
Really? No. By the way, checked American taxes lately? If I empty my pockets to a private company, on the other hand, that’s voluntary on my part. And please, do tell us what alphabet agencies have done to progress the way of life of humanity that can rival tech companies. There is no excuse for blurting “they here for muh safety, duh!” in 2016. I really must assume either your handle here is literal, or deep down you know you’re sold out to nonsense, which is why your reaction is so poor.
You are wrong, I would be doing no such thing. And I have never done any such thing. I have supported Microsoft and Google in various fights with the US Govt overstepping their policing and national security powers. (Considering there is no significant use of a non-US engineered operating systems–say like China’s COS or OPhone–in the US, I’m not really sure who you’re blathering about anyhow. Non-American companies just aren’t at play on this topic since they’re not making the secret sauce involved.)
Further, I pretty much made that CLEAR by using the conjunction “AND” to say the case made ALL Americans worse off, in THIS CASE also specifically Apple users.
Which pretty much makes you a moron, as defined as someone who unintelligently makes assumptions about other people they do not know on issues they have no knowledge. Troll elsewhere, wrong target.
“You know as well as I do that if that phone ran Android and was made by Samsung, LG or any other non-American company you would be marching down the streets DEMANDING the American Government and the FBI did the patriotic, American thing and brought those foreign companies to task FOR THE SAFETY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.”
No. About that you are wrong. Utterly wrong. mI can back that up because when RIM (BlackBerry) rolled over and started giving back doors to the US, India, Saudi Arabia etc., etc., I protested and I WASN’T EVEN A BB USER.
So no about this you have no idea of what you speak.
“You know as well as I do that if that phone ran Android and was made by Samsung, LG or any other non-American company”
Actually, we don’t know as well as you do, because we aren’t as arrogant and reactionary as you in assuming complete bad faith in anybody who likes Apple products or Apple as a company.
The government exists to protect us within a framework of rights that the government is supposed to abide by – what we are concerned about is that their actions aren’t in conformity with those established rights. This isn’t Calvinball where you just get to make stuff up at every turn.
They are basically saying, we found nothing, but it was good to hack the iPhone just to make sure.
This is just the FBI crying and making excuses.
Propaganda bollocks. They clearly knew they’d was no data on his work phone. It was about getting access to all smartphones everyone because government are control freaks who think they are above all the laws the rest of us obey.
The shooter had another “PERSONAL PHONE” that they destroyed just prior to the shooting! This was NEVER about this iPhone! What a CROCK!!
What a load of crap. How can you not find anything new, yet have data you didn’t have before? By definition, that is new data! HELLO.
Maybe what they mean is that they discovered new things (like Farook’s high score in Angry Birds!) but nothing USEFUL. Surprise surprise, anyone with half a brain in their heads could have told them that.
here let me see if this could confort anyone about phone security does have to be an iPhone or android phone
https://youtu.be/DvCtQO6_osA
https://youtu.be/O4tUx1W3zLc
How not finding anything clues the FBI into not working with ISIS? Do they not know about burn phones? how about personal Voice to Voice conversations. Hey do we have to record all our personal voice communications, just in case the FBI feels it has the right to know what we’re doing 24 hours a day? Or is the FBI developing tech to read people’s minds? Anyone see the Movie Fortress. It’s based in a Private Run Prison, and there’s a machine that goes around the cells and it can read people’s thoughts. Man if the FBI had that, you wouldn’t even have rights any more to your own thoughts. There would be no limits. I’m sure there’s many people all for this because of Terrorists. Just giving the Terrorists what they want.
How can you guys report this FUD as fact? Clear case of the FBI massaging the results to fit the narrative they had conceived long ago. Had a private entity perpetuated this kind of fraud, they’d likely be facing prosecution right now.
There was never any evidence that these losers ever “were working with ISIS”. They watched a bunch of propaganda videos online and bought into the BS. They went out by themselves and did something stupid. Twenty years ago they would have done the same thing in the name of being a militia, or Aryan Nation group. Witness the bombing of the Murrow Building. Twenty years before that they would have done the same thing in the name of Communism. Witness the Red Brigade and Red Army Factions in Europe.
Losers are losers and losers want to go out in a blaze of glory. Rather than going after this or that motivation of the moment, the FBI and Government should be looking at why some people get so alienated that they hunt for an excuse to lash out.
So the FBI has to know everything a person did to them to be satisfied. He is a criminal, but it seems the gap is not that important, not to mention hacking a phone to address that.