Posted on 11/20/2017 2:55:01 PM PST by Swordmaker
Apple has officially been served with a warrant in the case of the Texas shooting perpetrator Devin Patrick Kelley and his iPhone. The case hearkens back to the San Bernardino tragedy of 2015, and the ensuing legal dispute with repercussions that are still being felt today.
As per court records obtained by the San Antonio Express-News, Texas Ranger Kevin Wright has produced search warrants for photos, messages, documents, and other data that might be stored on Kelley’s iPhone and his iCloud account. Access to this information, authorities say, could help shed light on the worst mass shooting in the state’s history.
On Friday, November 10, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein voiced frustration about cell phone encryption. Using the recent Texas church shooter Devin Patrick Kelley as an example, Rosenstein said, “No reasonable person questions our right to access the phone.” The comments were the latest against Apple from the Department of Justice.
At a business breakfast, Rosenstein told the audience that he believed Apple should provide law enforcement agencies backdoor access to break encryption. He went on to say that there’s no “legitimate privacy interest in that [Kelley’s] phone,” and that if Kelley were alive it would be legal for police and prosecutors to search the phone.
Rosenstein’s comments came just days after Apple released a public statement saying that no law enforcement agencies had contacted the company for assistance after the Texas shooting that left 25 dead, plus an unborn child.
During a press conference on Tuesday, November 7, FBI special agent Christopher Combs expressed dismay over the agency’s inability to unlock Kelley’s phone after a shooting in Sutherland Springs.
“It highlights an issue that you’ve all heard about before, with the advance of the technology and the phones and the encryptions [sic], law enforcement, whether that’s at the state, local or federal level, is increasingly not able to get into these phones,” Cooper said, without referring directly to Apple.
On Wednesday, November 8, Apple responded to the FBI’s criticism stating that it actually reached out to assist the FBI shortly after Tuesday’s press conference. In a statement provided to BuzzFeed, Apple said neither local, state, nor federal officials reached out to the company before the press conference. It also offered to expedite any requests from officials.
Apple's statement on the phone used by the Texas church gunman is quite something pic.twitter.com/RVwk13tM6U
— John Paczkowski (@JohnPaczkowski) November 8, 2017
The timing of both the FBI’s statement, as well as Apple’s response, is crucial to the investigation. Had the FBI had contacted the iPhone maker within the first 48 hours of the shooting, they could have possibly used the phone’s Touch ID technology to unlock the phone. After 48 hours, however, Touch ID can no longer be used to unlock the phone.
After reaching out to the FBI on Tuesday to see if it needed help unlocking Kelley’s phone, an official with the agency responded, stating the FBI was not asking for any assistance. According to a story in The Washington Post, investigators decided instead to send the phone to its Quantico, Virginia, headquarters to attempt to find a different way to access data, a decision that could take weeks.
While 80 percent of iPhone users rely on the Touch ID feature to unlock their phones, it’s unknown if Kelley used the feature. Even without Touch ID, other options exist for accessing the shooter’s data. Apple provides encrypted iCloud storage data and decryption keys to law enforcement officials with a court order.
The Texas shooting is just the latest in a series of battles between Apple and law enforcement agencies. In 2016, the FBI took Apple to court in an attempt to force the company to unlock San Bernardino, California shooter Syed Farook’s iPhone. After a protracted legal battle, the FBI eventually dropped the case after it was able to unlock the phone with third-party software.
Update: Apple has been served a search warrant with regard to the mass shooter’s iPhone.
That being said, Apple may have possession of the back-up data from that iPhone stored in the shooter's iCloud account. As custodian of those data, a search warrant for those data is entirely appropriate and Apple is required to produce what it has access to produce and to hand those data over to the appropriate authorities, IF the Texas Shooter opted to back-up his iPhone to an iCloud account. If he did not so opt, then there will be nothing there. Apple did exactly that with the San Bernardino Terrorist's data from that iPhone 5c (unfortunately, that data was discontinued at the end of October at the option of the terrorist) and offered to do the same in the Texas Church Shooting as soon as they heard there was a phone involved. . . but apparently they were never contacted by the Texas authorities. Apple DOES have to have a valid search warrant in hand before they can legally violate any user's secure data.
One error in this article is that the FBI did eventually get the iPhone 5c in the San Bernardino Terrorist case unlocked at a cost of over $1 million, but not with "software" as it was a hardware hack requiring the use of virtual iPhones to unlock the older model iPhone. The "case" was never "dropped," because there really was no lawsuit against Apple, but rather an All Writs court order which was quashed.
After spending all that time and money to unlock the terrorist's iPhone, nothing dispositive was found on the device as it was discovered to have been used only for work purposes and had received only a couple of calls and a few incidental texts from the perpetrator's wife of the nature of "Are you on your way home?" and "Please stop and buy some milk on your way home."
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Someone needs to that this stuff to the Supreme Court so we won’t need to jerk around getting an answer in the future.
That's exactly right. The search warrant is on the IPhone account and not the iPhone. Apple has the data in the cloud and should provide it based on a legal search warrant.
1) Thank you for using “data” correctly as a plural noun
2) Completely agree with your analysis
3) Not so much an Apple issue — much broader IMHO. Apple is just the canary in the coalmine.
I hope there's a decent explanation for all this kerfluffle.
Love and adore the rangers of yore. This modern bunch says they have a warrant..to make apple... somehow overcome....math?
morons...
The story lies about what the FBI tried to do last year. They did not try to have Apple unlock the San Bernardino iPhone, they tried to force Apple to create a backdoor to EVERY iPhone.
That’s a hell of a big detail to mess up on.
“Texas Ranger Kevin Wright has produced search warrants for photos, messages, documents, and other data that might be stored on Kelley’s iPhone and his iCloud account. Access to this information, authorities say, could help shed light on the worst mass shooting in the state’s history.”
Well gosh... a warrant?
Does he have any idea that this is a practical impossibility?
This may come as a shock but not everyone backs up to the cloud since Apple only gives 5 meg of free space and iPhones now come in 256 meg configuration.
Apple or for that matter no one can give what they don't have. I think that may be on purpose.
I know you have done it dozens of times, but can you please post up details of how secure this phone is, and the absurdity that someone can just demand apple to “break into” it?
Probably not.
“... phones and the encryptions...”
Dibs on “iPhone and the Encryptions” for a band name.
also ... IF the data is in the cloud the data is stored as encrypted data. Apple would have to deliver the unencrypted data or the keys so LEAs can retrieve the data. At least that’s how it used to work. Been out of that area for a while.
An idiot who believed Apple when it said it had conquered the US Constitution.
http://blogs.findlaw.com/third_circuit/2017/03/man-held-in-contempt-for-refusing-to-unlock-devices-in-child-porn-case.html
He’s enjoyed 2 years in jail so far. Hopefully the Supreme Court will take his case and start to put an end to the high-profit encryption practices of Apple and others.
I think this whole thing is another farce aimed at trying to force apple to create FBIOS and give it to Fedzilla. They have some deranged idea that absolutely NO data should be able to be hidden from them.
Think about that, they have decided they have a right to access every single bit of information in America.
They know who did the church shooting and why. They know the numerous primary and causal ways Fedzilla dropped the ball. And now they cynically are using this to advance their security state agenda.
“IF the data is in the cloud the data is stored as encrypted data. Apple would have to deliver the unencrypted data or the keys “
Apple doesn’t hold any “keys” and to my knowledge cannot realistically create them. They can demand all they want to decipher the encrypted data and i don’t think it can be.
I hope apple -strengthens- it’s encryption. Encryption makes the world a better place. Government being able to read everything makes it worse.
Thems just the facts...
“It’s better for you than the US Constitution!”
Yeah, that’s a common remark from demonstrable fools.
One of these encryption marketers needs to get sued for the cost of cracking their public nuisances.
It’s be an open and shut case.
Apple, though, has a lot of money to throw at media and politicians. I think they could win the issue with the mob.
Public nuisances? Que? That so called nuisance as you call it guarantees my data is secure, along with my credit card, photos, conversations and business. And it’s of no business to you, random hackers or big daddy gubermint what business I do on my phone.
You must be a hackers wet dream or that guy that sits in front of mailboxes waiting for your checks to be delivered.
Would your password happen to be “password”?
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