The Short Quiz

[johnkarls]

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1. Did Osama bin Laden issue: (A) a fatwā in 1996 entitled “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” (i.e., Saudi Arabia and Mecca/Medina); (B) a fatwā in 1998 entitled “The Nuclear Bomb of Islam” and (C) a fatwā in 2002 (revised in 2005) requiring all of his followers to nuke 10 million Americans -- about which the Founding Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government wrote a famous book but whose recommendations have NOT been followed despite the endorsement and exhaustive supportive efforts of former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman 1987-1995), U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN and then-current Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) and Messrs. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton (Chair and Co-Chair of The 9/11 Commission)?

2. Is Osama’s requirement to nuke 10 million Americans binding on EVERY MEMBER of Al Qaeda (which brought us 9/11); EVERY MEMBER OF Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (i.e., Yemen) which brought us, among other things, the Underwear Bomber on Northwest Airlines 253 approaching Detroit; and EVERY MEMBER OF the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known by its acronym ISIS and originally known as Al Qaeda in Iraq), etc., etc.?

3. Is it true that Osama bin Laden’s fatwā to nuke 10 million Americans can NOT be revoked now that he is dead?

4. Have nuclear weapons and fissile material been readily available to terrorists from, inter alia, the break-up of the Old Soviet Union?

5. Did an M.I.T. student in just 5 weeks in 1975 at the request of a TV producer of a documentary that aired on PBS’ Nova Science Series on 3/9/1975, design and construct a nuclear weapon from information and materials that were readily available publicly?

6. Did the top responsible U.S. Governmental Officials not only regularly ADMIT 2001-2005 that it is only a matter of time until an American city is nuked -- indeed, did they ARGUE that it is only a matter of time until an American city is nuked?

7. Do our top U.S. Governmental Intelligence Officials currently admit that it is only a matter of time until 10 million Americans are nuked?

8. Does our author claim that the U.S. government’s surveillance has not been effective?

9. How can any of the outside studies of the effectiveness of the U.S. government’s surveillance be believed if the U.S. government cannot disclose all of its successes without disclosing to the Radical Islamic Terrorists its sources and methods?

10. Isn’t it true that if an American citizen is law-abiding, s/he has nothing to fear from surveillance of Radical Islamic Terrorists?

11. And isn’t the old maxim “Honesty Is The Best Policy” true even if one has no religious scruples or ethical principles, because the truth is much easier to remember than a lie?

12. Did U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) defame his constituents in the recent Republican Presidential Debates by trying to explain his Libertarian philosophy with an example that began with the assumption that everyone is doing something illegal -- strongly implying that every Kentucky resident still has an illegal Moonshine Still in her/his basement?

13. Does our author Julia Angwin seem naïve about the ability of governmental and independent organizations, both domestic and foreign, to conduct surveillance/espionage?

14. Who was the U.S. Navy’s Senior Chief (E-8) Arthur Severa?

15. When Yours Truly served as an Unrestricted Line Officer in the U.S. Navy for 3 years during the late 1960’s, did Senior Chief Severa who served under him, visit whenever possible his family which was living in Navy housing at the Newport RI Naval Base?

16. Did Senior Chief Severa return from one of his visits with a clipping from the civilian Newport newspaper that reported the recent defection of a top Soviet scientist who had been working on a weapon that would kill U.S. nuclear subs by disabling all electrical systems within a radius of several miles? And who claimed that it had been tested by killing the U.S. nuclear sub Thresher in 1963 and the U.S. nuclear sub Scorpion in 1968?

17. Did Yours Truly show the clipping to the Skipper of one of the aircraft squadrons assigned to our command, who was serving on the official Navy Board of Inquiry into the sinking of the Scorpion?

18. Did that officer exhibit shock for which it took more than 60 seconds to regain his composure, following which he claimed that there was nothing to the report THOUGH HE INSISTED ON RETAINING THE CLIPPING?

19. Did the BBC’s extremely-popular 2002-2011 TV series entitled “MI-5” about Britain’s domestic intelligence service coping with foreign threats to the U.K. homeland include an episode about this weapon being smuggled up the Thames River in a Russian submarine to disable all of London’s electrical systems?

20. Did that MI-5 episode indicate whether MI-5 rated the death of all the Londoners who would die of heart attacks due to the disabling of their pace makers as more important than the destruction of all of the digital records of corporate headquarters in London and of the U.K. government?

21. Did Yours Truly have a Top Secret Security Clearance with Cryptographic Access in order to stand OOD watches while our skipper was asleep, etc., because of the necessity to read instantaneously incoming messages for a command with nuclear weapons?

22. Would it be a breach of his security clearance for Yours Truly to disclose that back in the 1960’s our spy satellites were capable of distinguishing the grain in railroad ties?

23. Should it be child’s play for any government that had the ability half a century ago to disable electrical systems at a range of several miles and, from space, to distinguish the grain in railroad ties, to replicate everything on YOUR computer WITHOUT CONNECTING to your computer? For example, by taking an infra-red picture from long-range of your hard drive which can then be used to replicate all of your files?

24. When Yours Truly was suing the world’s 15 largest financial institutions for the $84 billion that they owed him and that had long-since been pledged in legally-binding fashion to benefit the education of 10 million inner-city children (please see the third and fourth sections of this Bulletin Board), was he concerned that the law firms representing the financial institutions would follow standard procedure enabling them to view every computer key stroke that Yours Truly was making?

25. Did Yours Truly try to thwart the law firms of the world’s 15 largest financial institutions by doing all of his work on an old laptop that had no connection to the internet? And that during the years involved in the litigation, Yours Truly only connected to the internet even for personal matters by using public computers (hotel business centers, public libraries, FedEx stores, etc.)? And that the only things he downloaded from the internet using those public computers were put on one-use-only thumb drives that were buried in a safe in his basement after their single use?

26. Does the prohibition against “unreasonable searches and seizures” of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution apply only to the U.S. Government and to the 50 state governments?

27. Does the prohibition against “unreasonable searches and seizures” apply in situations where the citizen has no expectation of privacy (e.g., the citizen’s own postings on social media)?

28. Even when a government is involved and the citizen has an expectation of privacy, is a search and/or seizure (e.g., the old Hollywood wiretap of a Mafioso) deemed REASONABLE if it is conducted pursuant to a Search Warrant issued by a Judge?

29. Where should the line be drawn between protecting 10 million Americans from being nuked and guarding against the possibility that future unscrupulous pols will impose a totalitarian dictatorship a la George Orwell?

30. Does Apple have a legitimate interest in making its users think that Apple’s encryption is effective so that Apple’s foreign competitors don’t bankrupt Apple with encryption that appears to be effective?

31. Was F.B.I. Director James Comey smart to challenge Apple publicly? From the viewpoint of Apple’s survivability? From the viewpoint of advertising the deficiencies of the F.B.I.? From the viewpoint of the F.B.I. being able to “mouse trap” Radical Islamic Terrorists who erroneously think the F.B.I. is incapable of de-encrypting their messages -- the same way Allied Intelligence de-encrypted both the Nazi and Imperial Japanese codes without permitting either the Nazis or the Japanese to imagine that their codes had been broken?

32. What could Comey possibly have been thinking if one wanted to be charitable?

33. Who de-encrypted the cell phone of the Radical Islamic Terrorist in San Bernardino for the F.B.I.? Has the “smart money” been bet on the N.S.A. tutoring Comey? Or if the N.S.A. is just as clueless as the F.B.I., has the “smart money” been bet on the probability that from among all of the world’s governmental agencies which can de-encrypt Apple’s cell phones, Britain’s MI-5 and/or MI-6 tutored Comey because of the British-American Special Relationship?

34. Even though European countries typically have no restrictions against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” our author states that most of them have legal safeguards permitting citizens access to their records and the ability to correct such records -- would such legislation be desirable in the U.S., particularly in the example cited in our focus book of the Massachusetts law revoking a citizen’s drivers license based on facial-recognition software that often produces mistakes? Or, for example, for the U.S. Government’s no-fly list?

35. Is it sufficient in these instances, since the victim is aware of the mistake almost immediately (e.g., the next time a police-person checks the validity of her/his drivers license or the next time s/he tries to board a plane), to saddle the victim with the expense of hiring a lawyer who might or might not be able to force the governmental agency to disclose the basis of its action and, if erroneous, to rectify the situation?

[johnkarls]

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NY Times – 2/17/2016


Apple Fights Order To Unlock San Bernardino Gunman’s iPhone
By Eric Lichtblau and Katie Benner


WASHINGTON — Last month, some of President Obama’s top intelligence advisers met in Silicon Valley with Apple’s chief, Timothy D. Cook, and other technology leaders in what seemed to be a public rapprochement in their long-running dispute over the encryption safeguards built into their devices.

But behind the scenes, relations were tense, as lawyers for the Obama administration and Apple held closely guarded discussions for over two months about one particularly urgent case: The F.B.I. wanted Apple to help “unlock” an iPhone used by one of the two attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December, but Apple was resisting.

When the talks collapsed, a federal magistrate judge, at the Justice Department’s request, ordered Apple to bypass security functions on the phone. The order set off a furious public battle on Wednesday between the Obama administration and one of the world’s most valuable companies in a dispute with far-reaching legal implications.

When talks collapsed, a federal magistrate judge, at the Justice Department’s request, ordered Apple to bypass security functions on the phone. The order set off a furious public battle on Wednesday between the Obama administration and one of the world’s most valuable companies in a dispute with far-reaching legal implications.

“This Apple case really goes right to the heart of the encryption issue,” said Ira Rubinstein, a senior fellow at the New York University Information Law Institute, “and in some ways, this was a fight that was inevitable.”

This is not the first time a technology company has been ordered to effectively decrypt its own product. But industry experts say it is the most significant because of Apple’s global profile, the invasive steps it says are being demanded and the brutality of the San Bernardino attacks.

Law enforcement officials who support the F.B.I.’s position said that the impasse with Apple provided an ideal test case to move from an abstract debate over the balance between national security and privacy to a concrete one.

The F.B.I. has been unable to get into the phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who was killed by the police along with his wife after they attacked Mr. Farook’s co-workers at a holiday gathering. Reynaldo Tariche, an F.B.I. agent on Long Island, said, “The worst-case scenario has come true.”

Mr. Tariche, who is president of the agents’ association, added, “As more of these devices come to market, this touches all aspects of the cases that we’re working on.”

Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym of the Federal District Court for the District of Central California issued her order Tuesday afternoon, after the F.B.I. said it had been unable to get access to the data on its own and needed Apple’s technical assistance.

Mr. Cook, the chief executive at Apple, responded Wednesday morning with a blistering, 1,100-word letter to Apple customers, warning of the “chilling” breach of privacy posed by the government’s demands. He maintained that the order would effectively require it to create a “backdoor” to get around its own safeguards, and Apple vowed to appeal the ruling by next week.

“The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe,” Mr. Cook said.

Apple argues that the software the F.B.I. wants it to create does not exist. But technologists say the company can do it.

Mr. Cook’s angry tone reflected the tense discussions, conducted mostly on the telephone, between his company and the government’s lawyers over the San Bernardino case. Apple executives had hoped to resolve the impasse without having to rewrite their own encryption software. They were frustrated that the Justice Department had aired its demand in public, according to an industry executive with knowledge of the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about internal discussions.

The Justice Department and the F.B.I. have the White House’s “full support,” the spokesman, Josh Earnest, said on Wednesday.

His vote of confidence was significant because James Comey, the F.B.I. director, has at times been at odds with the White House over his aggressive advocacy of tougher decryption requirements on technology companies. While Mr. Obama’s national security team was sympathetic to Mr. Comey’s position, others at the White House viewed legislation as potentially perilous. Late last year, Mr. Obama refused to back any legislation requiring decryption, leaving a court fight likely.

The Justice Department showed no sign of backing down Wednesday.

“It is unfortunate,” the department said in a statement, “that Apple continues to refuse to assist the department in obtaining access to the phone of one of the terrorists involved in a major terror attack on U.S. soil.”

The dispute could initiate legislation in Congress, with Republicans and Democrats alike criticizing Apple’s stance on Wednesday and calling for tougher decryption requirements. Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential contender, also attacked Apple on Fox News, asking, “Who do they think they are?”

But Apple had many defenders of its own among privacy and consumer advocates, who praised Mr. Cook for standing up to what they saw as government overreach.

Many of the company’s defenders argued that the types of government surveillance operations exposed in 2013 by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, have prompted technology companies to build tougher encryption safeguards in their products because of the privacy demands of their customers.

“Apple deserves praise for standing up for its right to offer secure devices to all of its customers,” said Alex Abdo, staff lawyer for the American Civil Liberty Union’s privacy and technology section.

Privacy advocates and others said they worried that if the F.B.I. succeeded in getting access to the software overriding Apple’s encryption, it would create easy access for the government in many future investigations.

“This is not the last step in the journey,” said Robert Cattanach, a former Justice Department lawyer who works on privacy and tech security issues at the law firm Dorsey & Whitney. “The next thing you know, they’ll be in the back door of these systems.”

The Apple order is a flash point in a dispute that has been building for more than a decade.

The F.B.I. began sounding alarms years ago about technology that allowed people to exchange private messages protected by encryption so strong that government agents could not break it. In fall 2010, at the behest of Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, the Obama administration began work on a law that required technology companies to provide unencrypted data to the government.

Lawyers at the F.B.I., Justice Department and Commerce Department drafted bills around the idea that technology companies in the Internet age should be bound by the same rules as phone companies, which were forced during the Clinton administration to build digital networks that government agents could tap.

The draft legislation would have covered app developers like WhatsApp and large companies like Google and Apple, according to current and former officials involved in the process.

There is no debate that, when armed with a court order, the government can get text messages and other data stored in plain text. Far less certain was whether the government could use a court order to force a company to write software or redesign its system to decode encrypted data. A federal law would make that authority clear, they said.

But the disclosures of government surveillance by Mr. Snowden changed the privacy debate, and the Obama administration decided not to move on the proposed legislation. It has not been revived.

The legal issues raised by the judge’s order are complicated. They involve statutory interpretation, rather than constitutional rights, and they could end up before the Supreme Court.

As Apple noted, the F.B.I., instead of asking Congress to pass legislation resolving the encryption fight, has proposed what appears to be a novel reading of the All Writs Act of 1789.

The law lets judges “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.”

The government says the law gives broad latitude to judges to require “third parties” to execute court orders. It has cited a 1977 ruling requiring phone companies to help set up a pen register, a device that records all numbers called from a particular phone line.

Apple argues that the scope of the act has strict limits. In 2005, a federal magistrate judge rejected the argument that the law could be used to compel a telecommunications provider to allow real-time tracking of a cellphone without a search warrant.

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Eric Lichtblau reported from Washington, and Katie Benner from San Francisco. Matt Apuzzo contributed reporting from Washington, Sewell Chan from London, and Paul Mozur from Hong Kong.