FBI Director James Comey Is a Clown

Bipartisanship , baby ! Congress finally found something to harmonise on this Super Tuesday — how slippery the FBI ’s stance on encryption is .

At a House Judiciary hearing on Capitol Hill , representative grill FBI Director James Comey and Apple ’s lawyers over their on-going battle . The key to the contravention is whether the FBI can compel Apple to produce software that would unlock a terrorist act suspect ’s iPhone .

Most Democrats and Republicans asked Comey pointed questions . ( A few compliment the FBI conductor on his candor , a sorry reflection of how conditioned House members are to getting stonewalled by intelligence official . )

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Comey’sprepared testimonyrehashed an argument he has trotted out before : encoding is a cloak for sinner that lets criminals “ go disconsolate ” and escape legal philosophy enforcement . As we ’ve enjoin before , this parameter simplifies a complex progeny into an inaccurate Bad Guys vs. Good Guys situation . The dusty prepared statement was nothing compare to how Comey respond to the barrage of questions . Here are some of the lowlights from the three - time of day session :

Remember thatimportant tribunal rulingin favor of Apple yesterday , where a judge deny that the government can use All Writs to force Apple to unlock an iPhone ? consort to Comey , he did n’t get at to take it before testifying about this casing … where the political science is attempting to apply All Writs to impel Apple to assist in unlock an iPhone . His avoidance of such an manifestly authoritative court ruling is froward blindness .

Comey say the iCloud ’s security department has never bothered him , and that the iCloud is n’t code . This is peculiar because the iCloud isencrypted . It was also the emplacement of anotorious Apple security breach , which a extremity of Congress direct this out . A phallus of Congress said “ Fappening ” and it was disconcerting . But let ’s move on , because …

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Comey place a hypothetical to instance that the tradition software program probably did already be , at least in the brains of Apple employees : What if Apple engineers got kidnapped and forced to publish the backdoor ?

When asked how many other office the FBI had asked for help , Comey said that people who “ watch too much telly ” magnify the technical capabilities of government agencies . He did directly respond to a question about whether the NSA helped . His answer : No , the NSA could n’t do it .

As The Intercept ’s Jenna Maclaughin maneuver out , that means Comeyis either lie on recordor the NSA really could n’t do it . Maybe I watch too much TV , but I ’m imagine it ’s the first one .

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Comey said that the FBI could not mirror the phone in question . Why ? “ For reasons I do n’t whole infer , ” he said .

When asked repeatedly if he believes that Congress should make privacy decisions rather than the Court , Comey would n’t give a straight answer .

Later , Comey say , “ Some people have said , when you ’re in a terrorism probe , why did n’t you add up to Congress ? I articulate , ‘ Well , we ’re in the heart of a terrorism investigation . ’ ”

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Once again , Comey assert the principal job was that smart people were n’t think hard enough about solving this job . “ I do n’t think the most creative people in this state has been give the incentive to figure out this problem , ” he said .

Comey said that there was no safe , basement , or other lock - up place in America that was unobtainable to law enforcement before the Second Coming of Christ of the iPhone . For that claim to be true , it would imply that police enforcement can crack any computer code created before 2007 , even hand - written computer code .

Comey repeat his furrow that the Apple situation was a“business model ” problem .

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When asked if he ’d considered the deduction of Chinese encoding policy before engage the court gild , Comey pronounce “ no . ” Which means , again , he ’s either lie in front of Congress , or he ’s willfully ignorant .

member of Congress give thanks Comey for promote dialogue at the closing of the session , but the only matter the FBI Director cleared up is how flexible his kinship with true statement is . The only time he spoke an unambiguous truth was when he order that Apple is a company with a responsibility to its investor , and that it is motivated to maximize profit .

Comey compare Apple ’s security bar to a “ vicious guard duty dog . ” It ’s a flaky metaphor , but here ’s a couple : The FBI sent a clown to Congress today , spew silliness to distract from the agency ’s object lens to expand its surveillance powers .

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