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Comment by Arjuna | Hacker News Reader

My reply is... "What about the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution?"

Would we really be having these discussions if Americans (speaking as an American here) were better-educated on our own rights, our own foundation, the very fibers of our own history?

I mean, this is such a simple amendment, so crystal-clear and eloquent. After reading it (see below), how can there possibly be any doubt as to how the proverbial wool is being pulled over our eyes?

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

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> [the fourth amendment]

If a warrant is issued, the government has the right to search and seize under the forth.

My argument is that they may search for and/or seize the physical medium containing the data. If I encrypted that data — on a disk, a piece of paper, a network connection —, the question, I think, is why should I, a citizen, tell you, the government, the key with which I encrypted that data?

As a citizen, I am not required to speak just because it might (or even will) help a government investigation. Likewise, I don't see why I should be required to divulge a key. Especially if there isn't yet a crime that people know to have been committed.

In other words: [No person] shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself

I don't think anyone's unclear about the violations, but when our system of government is limited to 2 parties, and BOTH of them are bought and sold to various companies and departments with interest in violating that premise, the ideal is doomed.

Is it really two parties? Are they really that different?

What's the difference between ISIS and WMDs? Barack Obama and George W. Bush?

I see your point, but the difference between ISIS and WMDs [in Saddam Hussein's Iraq] would be. . . ISIS is unquestionably real.

Real and directly caused by the US Government's actions. Just like theocratic Iran and Al Qaeda.

Did they ever figure out what Saddam did with the large stock of WMD that we know he had prior? Trucked off to Syria before the invasion? Where did it all go?

I would say there are two parties, but it's not "Democrats/Republicans", it's "Tea Party/Everybody else".

There's a small group of people making Republican politicians do crazy things (shutting down the government, blockading Obama, various social issues [gay marriage/abortion]), but by and large the Democrats and Republicans are the same.

You should better educate yourself, the article is about seizure with a warrant, with which Apple and Google will no longer be able to help them.

Don't worry, though, Microsoft and their NSAKEY will be there for them.

Why should Apple even be involved in a warrant served against my phone? When you serve a warrant against a house, do you expect that the builder of the house will be able to give you access to the interior even after they no longer own it?

You're implying that Apple doesn't own the content people store on their devices? I thought the entire point of their walled garden OS was that they did, and were quite willing to add, delete or modify it as they please.

Going to the actual owners of the content makes perfect sense.

What? Of course Apple doesn't own the content on my iPhone. Why would you think they did? I paid for the thing. It is now mine.

I'm pretty sure millions of people didn't decide for themselves to put a U2 album in their playlist. Apple made that decision for them.

It's pretty clear that unless it's entirely your decision what goes on that device, what goes off and who has access to it, you didn't pay to own it, you paid for the right to access their content on their device under their terms. It doesn't matter if you paid money for it - they own it in every way that's relevant.

I don't own the content on my iPhone because Apple put a U2 album on there for me if I checked the box that says "automatically download new purchases". That's the worst argument I've seen in quite a while.

Judging by the amount of karma i'm shedding, the consensus would seem to agree with you....

Just to clarify, I strongly dislike Apple's controlling policies on iOS. I think it's ridiculous that they won't allow sideloading apps or downgrading your OS, let alone installing custom OS builds. However, going from "they can tell your phone to download a U2 album if you ticked the box" to "thus they own your vacation photos" is still a complete non-sequitur.

Ignoring the actual legalities involved, if some three-letter agency went to Apple and said "we want all the data on the Apple devices belonging to to so-and-so," Could Apple theoretically access it, and hand it over?

If not, then I'll concede I was massively too paranoid, which wouldn't be the first time when it comes to Apple (and Google.. definitely and Google cars, and Adobe as soon as they pulled that BS with Creative Cloud) But if so then (even if I was wrong about the U2 thing) I don't believe i'm speculating too wildly.

Apple owns the content to the degree that they can limit your access to it more than you can limit theirs - "ownership" in this case is not so much a legal as a practical matter. You can't really own something you don't control. I'll extend this to any app-based OS as far as it applies.

That's the whole root of the discussion here. The answer used to be, yes, Apple could help extract user data from an iPhone and hand it over to authorities (although I think the authorities still needed to take physical possession of the device first). Now they're building it so that Apple can't access your data regardless, because it's encrypted with keys they don't have. This naturally annoys law enforcement.

Has a warrant ever been a guarantee that a search will produce results?

"You should better educate yourself, the article is about seizure with a warrant, with which Apple and Google will no longer be able to help them."

To add to the other great comments:

I understand that it is via warrant. In fact, the article states that Apple said, "It's not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants [...]".

My concern is perhaps more nuanced. Put aside the warrant issue for a moment. That is to say, where do we draw the line and say, "This type of sweeping, 'open everything up and stop encrypting' request is a violation of, 'the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects?'"

In summary, my contention is that forcing companies to open up in this manner violates the explicit right of the people to be secure.

The cops can complain about Apple's policy but they can't do anything about it unless the law is changed.

> Put aside the warrant issue for a moment

I don't think we can put aside the warrant issue when talking about your right to be secure. Your right to be secure is only against unreasonable search.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"

You could argue that we should have the unqualified right to be secure, but the constitution disagrees. I think a better argument is that warrants are issued without probably cause or not explicitly describing what is to be searched.

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