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April 26th, 2024 | 3:28 PM ET

Shooting Investigators Want To Get Around iPhone Security Features

Posted: February 18th, 2016

In an interview with NPR’s Renee Montagne, Former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and member of The Cipher Brief Network Matthew Olsen said that the argument between the Department of Justice and Apple centers around whether or not the request to break into a phone is a one-time request or the beginning of a ‘slippery slope’ toward accessing all iPhones.  “These sort of ‘slippery slope’ arguments are where lawyers go when they don’t have good facts, and I think Apple doesn’t have good facts in this case, particularly because this is a phone that was used by somebody who killed 14 Americans.”  

Moreover, Olsen pointed out the actual owner of the phone – the San Bernardino County Government – has consented to the opening of the phone by law enforcement.  So this case, he says, is less about the privacy of the owner of the phone and more about its broader implications for the question of encryption – a debate, he noted, will continue for some time.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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