We keep learning more about the FBI’s battle to force Apple to write new code to weaken its security system. I’ve done a lot of media on the issue this week. Below you can see a clip of me on BBC’s Newsnight last...
Cell Site Simulators – often referred to as Stingrays, the brand name of one popular model – gather sensitive information about cell phone users by essentially tricking their phones into thinking they are communicating with cell phone company towers, when in fact...
California congressman Ted Lieu yesterday wrote FBI director Jim Comey a public letter, asking the nation’s top cop to withdraw “the FBI’s demand of Apple” that it “create software it does not have in order to weaken its smartphone encryption system.” The...
As I blogged this morning, FBI director Jim Comey wants us to believe that his agency’s war against Apple is only about one phone, not about setting precedent that will impact all phones and all electronic devices. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. As the...
The FBI and the Obama Justice Department want courts to force Apple to act as a government spy by writing new code to break iPhone security features. FBI director Jim Comey claims he is singularly concerned with getting access to information on the...
For years, the FBI has begged congress to address what it says is a “going dark” problem. In July 2015, FBI director James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee law enforcement needs broader powers to force companies to build “backdoors” into their encrypted systems....
The advocacy organization Color of Change is mobilizing its members to ask FCC chairman Tom Wheeler to require transparency and policy commitments before authorizing local police departments to use controversial cell site simulator technology known as stingrays. The group’s message to the...
An alarming story out of Houston, where US Marshals have arrested a man over unpaid student loans dating back to the 1980s: Paul Aker says he was arrested at his home last week for a $1500 federal student loan he received in...
Two big ACLU lawsuits are in the news this week. First, stingrays. My colleagues at the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) successfully sued the NYPD to force the release of documents pertaining to the department’s use of controversial cell site simulators,...
The National Institute for Justice is seeking applications in 2016 for a grant program focused on “research and technology development leading to the introduction into practice of new, innovative means for: collecting digital evidence from mobile devices or large-scale computer networks, or for detecting...