3 ms·

Do you still hold the same position if we replace the United States / FBI with China? Apple sells tens of billions of dollars of iPhones to China every year. I

by cbhl 11y ago

Do you still hold the same position if we replace the United States / FBI with China? Apple sells tens of billions of dollars of iPhones to China every year. If Apple provides assistance to US law enforcement but not to Chinese law enforcement, that's going to be a disaster. But if Apple provides assistance to Chinese law enforcement, that's a different kind of disaster.

marcoperaza 11y ago
Search and seizure is a fundamental government power. I doubt any modern state would be viable (i.e. maintain its monopoly on violence) without it. In the US, we have procedures and standards of evidence that the government must meet in order to exercise that authority. That's not the case in China. So yes, the Chinese government should absolutely have this authority; they wouldn't be much of a government otherwise. They should also absolutely have protections against unreasonable searches and seizure. The lack of these protections is the problem, not that their government has search and seizure powers. A tech company operating in China has to make a choice between subjecting itself to Chinese law, or not doing business in China. The same goes for policing in general in authoritarian regimes. The Chinese police state is undoubtedly evil. But I'd bet that most of the time, they're going after your run-of-the-mill crooks that need to be policed in China just as they are in America. Your argument is a good one though. I think there is a real danger of accidentally building the infrastructure for a future totalitarian regime. It's also a good political argument when it comes to international issues, like Microsoft's argument that the US government can't force them to hand over data that's stored in Ireland. I'd like to see Microsoft win the case in court, but I suspect that the government will win. US court orders are binding even when they require you to break foreign laws. But the government exercising that authority in this case could totally undermine US cloud data providers, so I suspect that Congress could be persuaded to restrict the government's authority here.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  > Search and seizure is a fundamental government power. What's not fundamental is that it should not be used UNLESS you are suspecting a person of wrongdoing with serious facts in the first place. It's never supposed to be an all-encompassing absolute power. > I doubt any modern state would be viable without it. There's hardly any data on states that don't exercise such powers, so don't spread the fallacy that the opposite cannot be true. It's not because right now A is linked to B that you actually need A to have B in absolute terms - you just don't know that. We are living in an era of nation-states themselves coming from a long history of monarchical power (an inheriting the same rights and powers, more or less as governments instead of a single person), so it's not like we have ever tried to design societies in a very different way at all so far.
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    > What's not fundamental is that it should not be used UNLESS you are suspecting a person of wrongdoing with serious facts in the first place. It's never supposed to be an all-encompassing absolute power. I agree 100%. In this case, the government has a court order for a specific phone used by a specific person who committed a particular crime. What exactly are you arguing against? > There's hardly any data on states that don't exercise such powers, so don't spread the fallacy that the opposite cannot be true. I'm sure there's an interesting discussion to be had about alternatives to the nation-state and how they might control the exercise of violence, which is by definition the fundamental characteristic of any system of government. But we live in a world where this authority is centralized (or sometimes, in federal systems, split between different levels of central authority).
    - ekianjo 11y ago
      > What exactly are you arguing against? I was arguing about your statement that seemed like a blanket one. I have no problem with the use of search in this particular case. > But we live in a world where this authority is centralized Yes, but that does not mean there is no alternative. Large scale societies are still very recent in Human History - and authoritarian systems have largely led to wars up until now, so assuming this is the only working system is just survivor bias at work.
- imron 11y ago
  > Mandated backdoors must be a red line, but this is not a request for a backdoor and actually seems pretty reasonable. This request is not so much a red line, it's more of a yellowy orange line. A yellowy orange line that takes us one step closer to crossing the red line without even realising we are doing so. See: http://imgur.com/xWpvw http://imgur.com/xWpvw There is a real danger in accidentally building the infrastructure for a future totalitarian regime. Full credit to Apple for actually seeing this and being willing to make a stand.

by cbhl 11y ago

marcoperaza 11y ago

Search and seizure is a fundamental government power. I doubt any modern state would be viable (i.e. maintain its monopoly on violence) without it. In the US, we have procedures and standards of evidence that the government must meet in order to exercise that authority. That's not the case in China. So yes, the Chinese government should absolutely have this authority; they wouldn't be much of a government otherwise. They should also absolutely have protections against unreasonable searches and seizure. The lack of these protections is the problem, not that their government has search and seizure powers. A tech company operating in China has to make a choice between subjecting itself to Chinese law, or not doing business in China. The same goes for policing in general in authoritarian regimes. The Chinese police state is undoubtedly evil. But I'd bet that most of the time, they're going after your run-of-the-mill crooks that need to be policed in China just as they are in America. Your argument is a good one though. I think there is a real danger of accidentally building the infrastructure for a future totalitarian regime. It's also a good political argument when it comes to international issues, like Microsoft's argument that the US government can't force them to hand over data that's stored in Ireland. I'd like to see Microsoft win the case in court, but I suspect that the government will win. US court orders are binding even when they require you to break foreign laws. But the government exercising that authority in this case could totally undermine US cloud data providers, so I suspect that Congress could be persuaded to restrict the government's authority here.

ekianjo 11y ago
> Search and seizure is a fundamental government power. What's not fundamental is that it should not be used UNLESS you are suspecting a person of wrongdoing with serious facts in the first place. It's never supposed to be an all-encompassing absolute power. > I doubt any modern state would be viable without it. There's hardly any data on states that don't exercise such powers, so don't spread the fallacy that the opposite cannot be true. It's not because right now A is linked to B that you actually need A to have B in absolute terms - you just don't know that. We are living in an era of nation-states themselves coming from a long history of monarchical power (an inheriting the same rights and powers, more or less as governments instead of a single person), so it's not like we have ever tried to design societies in a very different way at all so far.
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  > What's not fundamental is that it should not be used UNLESS you are suspecting a person of wrongdoing with serious facts in the first place. It's never supposed to be an all-encompassing absolute power. I agree 100%. In this case, the government has a court order for a specific phone used by a specific person who committed a particular crime. What exactly are you arguing against? > There's hardly any data on states that don't exercise such powers, so don't spread the fallacy that the opposite cannot be true. I'm sure there's an interesting discussion to be had about alternatives to the nation-state and how they might control the exercise of violence, which is by definition the fundamental characteristic of any system of government. But we live in a world where this authority is centralized (or sometimes, in federal systems, split between different levels of central authority).
  - ekianjo 11y ago
    > What exactly are you arguing against? I was arguing about your statement that seemed like a blanket one. I have no problem with the use of search in this particular case. > But we live in a world where this authority is centralized Yes, but that does not mean there is no alternative. Large scale societies are still very recent in Human History - and authoritarian systems have largely led to wars up until now, so assuming this is the only working system is just survivor bias at work.
imron 11y ago
> Mandated backdoors must be a red line, but this is not a request for a backdoor and actually seems pretty reasonable. This request is not so much a red line, it's more of a yellowy orange line. A yellowy orange line that takes us one step closer to crossing the red line without even realising we are doing so. See: http://imgur.com/xWpvw http://imgur.com/xWpvw There is a real danger in accidentally building the infrastructure for a future totalitarian regime. Full credit to Apple for actually seeing this and being willing to make a stand.