Law & Justice: February 2016 Archives
Good for Apple CEO Tim Cook for refusing the order to decrypt an iPhone.
Apple said on Wednesday that it would oppose and challenge a federal court order to help the F.B.I. unlock an iPhone used by one of the two attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December.On Tuesday, in a significant victory for the government, Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym of the Federal District Court for the District of Central California ordered Apple to bypass security functions on an iPhone 5c used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who was killed by the police along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, after they attacked Mr. Farook's co-workers at a holiday gathering.
Judge Pym ordered Apple to build special software that would essentially act as a skeleton key capable of unlocking the phone.
But hours later, in a statement by its chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, Apple announced its refusal to comply. The move sets up a legal showdown between the company, which says it is eager to protect the privacy of its customers, and the law enforcement authorities, who say that new encryption technologies hamper their ability to prevent and solve crime.
There's no end to this rabbit hole once it gets opened. American citizens have a right to privacy, and a right to strong encryption.
According to the FBI, St. Louis is the most violent city in America. Great job!
A list of the most violent cities in each state has been released, with St. Louis, Missouri taking the top spot.Compiled from data released by the FBI charting crime in the first six months of 2015, the 'Gateway City' is followed by Memphis, Tennessee, Detroit, Michigan, Birmingham, Alabama, and Rockford, Illinois, to round out the top five.
The violent crimes listed by the FBI include rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and murder. ...
While people may question whether St Louis' crime rates have been influenced by the turmoil after a white police officer shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in August 2014, Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St Louis debunked the idea.
He told Forbes: 'Homicides were going up in 2014 quite a bit before Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson. So it's hard to attribute it to a so-called Ferguson effect because we began to see those increases before August 9.'
Rosenfeld also pointed out that the figures do not track drug use or the crimes committed in subsequent turf wars.
As Ed Driscoll points out, there may be a pattern. St. Louis City has been exclusively electing Democrats for 73 years.
Former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has two must-read pieces that describe some of the internal workings of the Department of Justice and explain what is likely going on with the investigation of Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information. The first piece explains why Hillary is not a "subject" or "target" of the investigation.
First, there is one other thing you should know about the designations "target" and "subject" -- one of those things so obvious it is easy to miss. These are not just random words. They indicate that a suspect is a target or a subject of something.That something is a grand-jury investigation.
In an ordinary case, that would not be a point worth making. The FBI routinely conducts major investigations in collaboration with Justice Department prosecutors -- usually from the U.S. attorney's office in the district where potential crimes occurred. That is because the FBI needs the assistance of a grand jury. The FBI does not have authority even to issue subpoenas, let alone to charge someone with a crime. Only federal prosecutors may issue subpoenas, on the lawful authority of the grand jury. Only prosecutors are empowered to present evidence or propose charges to the grand jury. And the Constitution vests only the grand jury with authority to indict -- the formal accusation of a crime. In our system, the FBI can do none of these things.
The second piece claims that emails between Hillary and President Obama are enough evidence to convict Hillary. This is exactly the crime that General Petraeus was prosecuted for.
If the administration is refusing to disclose the Obama-Clinton e-mails because they involved the secretary of state providing advice and counsel to the president, do you think those exchanges just might touch on foreign-government information, foreign relations, or foreign activities of the United States -- deliberations on which are presumed classified?Will anyone in the press corps covering the White House and the State Department ask administration officials whether this is the case?
I believe some, if not all, of the communications between Obama and Clinton should be classified. To classify them now, however, would imply wrongdoing on both their parts since they knew they were communicating via private, unsecured e-mail. Essentially, Obama is invoking executive privilege because the effect of doing so -- viz., non-disclosure of the e-mails -- is the same as the effect of classifying them would be . . . but without the embarrassment that classifying them would entail.
Of course, Petraeus did not get executive-privilege treatment. His communications with Obama were deemed classified and he was prosecuted for failing to safeguard them.
Obviously the corruption goes to the top. Seems ripe for a Constitutional crisis.
