House Energy and Commerce subcommittee try to find common ground between U.S. tech companies and U.S. law enforcement agencies, thus re-igniting a decade old debate on the extent tech companies cooperate with law enforcement agencies during an investigation.
With the DOJ’s much publicized fight with tech giant Apple over its refusal to comply with a court order which compelled it to hand over source code or help assist the FBI into cracking its own encryption system in its smartphone, Apple Inc.’s top lawyer has now disclosed that it has refused requests made by Chinese authorities, within the last two years, to hand over its source code.
The issue at hand is the extent to which private tech companies should cooperate with the government.
Earlier law enforcement officials have attempted to paint a picture that although Apple has possibly handed over information to the Chinese government for business reasons, it has consistently refused to cooperate with U.S. requests in cases involving terrorism.
“I want to be very clear on this,” said Bruce Sewell, Apple’s general counsel in a hearing under oath. “We have not provided source code to the Chinese government.”
When asked to respond on these comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, said she did “not understand” the details of the situation and did not elaborate any further on the topic. China’s Public Security Ministry also did not respond to a request for comment.
Previously, Apple had denied the accusation and had said they were only part of a “smear” campaign, originating from the U.S. Department of Justice’s efforts to compel it to unlock its smartphone which was used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists.
Apple’s comment resurfaced in a hearing called by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee which is in the process of examining, the potential of common ground between private sector tech companies and U.S. law enforcement agencies, in the wide scope of the encryption debate. Even after hearing more than three hours of testimony, very little headway was made on the debate.
Security and technology experts have weighed in on the debate saying if the U.S. government was able to obtain Apple’s source code through a conventional court order, other government would follow suit and demand equal rights
Having won a court order to this effect, the FBI dropped its case with Apple having found a third party which helped it break into the iPhone of Rizwan Farook, one of the gunmen in the San Bernardino shooting.
This Tuesday, the FBI and Apple made a second appearance in Congress to testify over the extent of access U.S. law enforcement agencies will have with private tech companies, which a long standing dispute, going back to a decade, between Washington and Silicon Valley, which came into prominence with the San Bernardino shooting.
While the standoff underscored national security concerns posed by advances in computer security, the increased usage of strong encryption, by default, on handheld communication devices, is acting as a handicap for investigators in their routine criminal cases. This is what law enforcement officials told the hearing. Apple and other tech companies have defended their stand saying technological advancements is integral to protecting consumer rights.
Amy Hess, a FBI technological official, told the hearing that the FBI relies heavily on the “services and specialized skills that we can only get through the private industry, and that partnership is critical to our success,”.
In a related event, the civil liberties and tech advocacy group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has sued the Justice Department as it wants to know the extent the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has forced U.S. tech companies to comply with its orders to decrypt communications.
Categories: Creativity, Geopolitics, Regulations & Legal, Strategy
manageria.biz 
Leave a comment