Thursday, March 17, 2016

Black Lives Matter Sides With Apple Over FBI In iPhone Encryption Dispute

by JASmius



Second look at the surveillance state?:

The Black Lives Matter movement, along with [other racist extrem]ists like Jesse Jackson, appear to be backing Apple's fight against creating software that would allow the FBI to hack a phone used by one of the San Bernardino, California, shooters, saying the issue has a wider scope than just the one phone.

"It raises eyebrows that we, as young [extrem]ists working in a specific realm, found our role in this fight between Apple and the FBI," Linda Sarsour, a member of the [extrem]ist group Justice League NYC, told the Hill.

In addition, Sarsour said, the FBI wants powers that would "most directly affect [colored people], [illegal alien] communities, Muslim communities and political [extreme]ists."

Jackson wrote to Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym, the judge in the case between Apple and the FBI, saying that the case "case cuts right to the heart of our right to live free from unwarranted government surveillance." [emphasis added]

As a curmudgeonly old political realist, I absolutely love stories like this one.  It illustrates anew what ideological purists never, EVER want to admit: That the world is a complicated place, and there are almost never (heh) "black and white" situations.  In life, it's always shades of gray.

It's also fascinating for seeing in which direction stories like this tip said ideological purists.  The FBI-Apple dispute is not something about which I have chosen to comment because I can see good arguments on both sides.  The feds are right that enabling the tracking of jihadist communications is a key tool in counterterrorism operations; you'll note my leanings on that topic from last spring during the Patriot Act renewal fight.  "The Constitution is not a suicide pact" was and is the applicable phrase, and Patriot did not, contra Rand Paul, violate the Fourth Amendment.  But, on the other hand, Apple is entirely justified in defending their property rights to their proprietary encryption technology and not just letting it be seized and nationalized.  As I said on last Saturday's edition of Constitution Radio, why cannot the FBI simply request Apple's cooperation, rather than taking them to court to force them to cough it up?

The Director, by contrast, came down firmly on the Paulnut side of the issue.  Which makes his being bedfellows with the same #BlackLivesMatter insurrectionists that he has been (justifiably) condemning and denouncing recently just a delightful conundrum.  Is this a case of the stopped clock being right twice a day, or will there be a reassessment of that unequivocally hardcore libertarian stance, since I would think we could agree that law enforcement surveillance of BLM, illegal aliens, and "Muslim communities" is a practical necessity?

Almost makes me regret that I'm going to be flying the starship Pistachio solo two days from now.

Almost, that is.

No comments: