Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Apple, Americans, and Security vs. FBI

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Apple, Americans, and Security vs. FBI

Click here to access article by Shahid Buttar from Electronic Frontier Foundation.

This week's order by a federal magistrate judge requiring Apple to engineer new security flaws in its iPhone software operating system has prompted widespread and escalating controversy. Legitimate concerns about its implications have driven users around the country to raise their voices in defense of not only their privacy, but also the security of their online platforms threatened by the FBI's demands.

While the FBI has framed its demand as addressing a single phone, it has failed to address concerns that the implementation of the order—which was issued on the same day the FBI submitted its motion, without changes—would necessarily place at risk the security of millions of other devices and the people who use them.