Why AG Barr's use of Pensacola shooter case to rebuke Apple is so suspicious

As I’ve said for a long time now: Is your preference fascism-light, or full-on fascism?

Horrible decision to have to make, but in the immediate term, I’ll gladly take fascism-light.

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“Suspicious” suggests a hidden agenda, and that the AG (and the others before him making the same argument) actually understand the implications of what they are demanding. Whereas the agenda seems to be not hidden–they’re pretty up front about what they want–and the understanding seems to be lacking.

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Sorry - exactly what are you implying?

They tapped their land line phones.

I do not believe that the government needs unfettered access to the private communications of its citizens. That is the way authoritarian states control the populace. We are not there yet, but certainly headed there.

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Yeah but that’s the only way to control terrorism… take away our freedoms! /s

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Please provide citations demonstrating that the deployment of privacy-invasive technological measures have foiled imminent violent threats.

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Speaking of Comey (and Barr!)

The message Trump has sent to his bureaucracy is unmistakable. Political loyalists will be granted broad latitude, and displays of troublesome independence will be held to the strictest accountability.

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He wipes back to front.

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Alternatively, and I’m just spitballing here, they could investigate.

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Alternatively, they could also stop arming, training and funding terrorists across the globe.

They could also stop behaving in ways that provide justification for the few terrorist organisations that aren’t US proxies.

They could also spend some time investigating the white people who commit the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks within the USA.

But we all know that none of the above is going to happen while the bipartisan status quo persists.

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But the topic was investigating terrorists (I considered putting it in scare quotes, but sometimes the term is applied appropriately) and whether the Justice Dept. needs backdoor access to cell phones to do that job.

Also, regarding your last point, there’s this:

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/16/797041211/fbi-arrests-3-alleged-members-of-white-supremacist-group-ahead-of-richmond-rally

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If they do that, hw will they scale it up to constantly monitor everyone’s phones for evidence of thoughtcrime?

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The 4th Amendment is real simple here:
Unless you can get a judge to issue a warrant for the information, and it is a specific and limited request, the government isn’t entitled to jack shit when it comes to any personal information. Especially if they lack the means to obtain it on their own.

So why couldn’t the FBI ask Apple politely in a single instance for a phone to be unlocked?
Oh right, the pretext for their request was nonsense.

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tenor

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That’s a false dichotomy. There are more than two choices.

What about guillotines? Or, if the will for that isn’t there yet, working to undermine and delegitimize the system of violence that their power comes from until it starts to fall apart from the inside?

I was specifically referring to a vote in support of the Democrats vs. the Republicans. Voting third party amounts to a vote for full-on fascism (vs. fascism light), so while I totally support grassroots approaches to pushing things in a better direction than either of those two options, I will gladly vote for fascism light vs. full-on white power fascism, given those two choices at the voting booth.

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I would not trust anyone who ever worked with Barr to touch a device with my credit card, bank data, or other financial info. And any backdoor they install will be abused to death by other thieves who don’t wear badges.

No thanks.

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This is like a kid who looks at a ceramic cookie jar and can’t stand being unable to know what’s inside. Their solution is to have the jar made of something only they can see through.

It’s just way too onerous asking permission to see.

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