“Investigators asked for court permission to use Michael Cohen’s Face ID and fingerprints to access Apple devices belonging to the president’s former fixer and personal attorney, newly released warrant documents show.,” Lauren Feiner reports for CNBC. “Apple has historically resisted providing a backdoor to law enforcement, including in the investigation of the 2015 shooting massacre in San Bernardino, California, when the FBI asked the company to help it unlock an iPhone belonging to the shooter.”
“The request in Cohen’s case differs, however, in that it would not require Apple to step in for authorities to access the contents of his devices. Apple declined to comment on the warrant documents,” Feiner reports. “In a sworn affidavit supporting a warrant application, an FBI agent requested ‘that the Court authorize law enforcement to press the fingers (including thumbs) of Cohen to the Touch ID sensors of the Subject Devices, or hold the Subject Devices in front of Cohen’s face, for the purpose of attempting to unlock the Subject Devices via Touch ID or Face ID in order to search the contents as authorized by this warrant.'”
“In January, a federal judge rejected a warrant request in California that sought people at the scene of the search provide their fingerprints and faces to access their devices, AppleInsider reported,” Feiner reports. “The judge reportedly said the request ‘runs afoul of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: At the core of the issue is the U.S. Constitution:
AMENDMENT V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
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Sometimes the law gets too cute. We shouldn’t leave common sense out of the equation. The process is the same thing. You’re getting access to someone’s most private information by forcing someone to give you the key. — Miami defense attorney David Oscar Markus, May 2016
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Ultimately… the U.S. Supreme Court will likely have to weigh in on this issue. — MacDailyNews, May 4, 2017
SEE ALSO:
FBI forces suspect to unlock an Apple iPhone X with their face – October 1, 2018
Apple’s ‘cop button’ won’t keep your iPhone safe from the police – August 18, 2017
Florida man sentenced to 180 days in jail for not divulging his iPhone passcode – May 31, 2017
Florida judge orders reality TV actress to unlock Apple iPhone in ‘sextortion’ case – May 4, 2017
Miami sextortion case asks if a suspect can be forced to hand over Apple iPhone password – April 28, 2017
Feckless FBI unable to unlock iPhone, even with a ‘fingerprint unlock warrant’ – May 12, 2016
The Touch ID lock on your iPhone isn’t cop-proof – May 11, 2016
U.S. government wants your fingerprints to unlock your phone – May 1, 2016
Should you disable Touch ID for your own security? – May 9, 2016
U.S. government wants your fingerprints to unlock your phone – May 1, 2016
Virginia police can now force you to unlock your smartphone with your fingerprint – October 31, 2014
Apple’s Touch ID may mean U.S. iPhone 5s users can’t ‘take the fifth’ – September 12, 2013
Apple’s iPhone 5S with biometric identification: Big Brother’s dream? – September 11, 2013
The judge did right to invoke the 4th and 5th in the denial.
For context, the special prosecutor did not get Cohen for collusion with Putin to throw the election to Trump, but for lying, so I am with Right-wingers in saying that Mueller is behaving extra-Constitutionally by engaging in a witch hunt — the irrational search and punishment for a non-crime. To get someone for lying to a prosecutor — which is a federal crime — is super easy; All you have to do is ask that same question days later and the answer is bound to be different enough for an overly-aggressive prosecutor to convince a sheathed judge or a naive jury that the suspect lied.
No. That’s dead wrong. The judge explicitly stated that that case was not about Russian collusion, and no parties were permitted to present evidence or argue for or against collusion.
An analogy might help: If Jeffrey Dahmer were arrested for tax evasion, the ensuing legal case would be about tax evasion. Not about cannibalism. The cannibalism case would be a separate case. So if the prosecutors in the tax-evasion case didn’t nail him on cannibalism, that by no means implies that he didn’t eat people. And it certainly doesn’t mean that the prosecutor in the Dahmer cannibalism case is on a witch hunt.
Is that clearer?
Your argument seems to fixate on a tree at the expense of seeing the forest which would provide a comprehensive meaning.
The Founders, the ones who wrote the 5th Amendment, way before evolution advanced us so far, were a whole lot wiser and better people than our politicians and our judges today. They wanted freedom and accepted responsibility for doing what it takes to obtain freedom. The 5th Amendment is clear. So are a lot of our laws, like ones that say you can’t make up lies to present to a judge to get a secret warrant to spy on the man who might be President. Or the one who just got elected. But that was done and the people who did it are not in jail. We won’t have this country as founded much longer. Our people are too ignorant, to arrogant, to immoral to deserve freedom. But, they will get what they deserve.
The 5th Amendment to the US Constitution:
“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Please point to some provision of the Fifth Amendment that limits non-testimonial evidence like fingerprints or somebody’s face. Are you suggesting that photo lineups somehow violate the self-incrimination rights of the people in the images? Do you think that prisoners going through booking can’t be fingerprinted? Please explain how using the same face to unlock a phone forces someone to be a witness against himself.
Similarly, what part of the Fourth Amendment prohibits the search of a device pursuant to a proper judicial search warrant in accordance with the specific procedures set out in the Constitution?
The problem with the search in California was that the FBI wanted to require everyone at the scene to unlock their devices without any showing of probable cause that those particular unknown-at-the-time individuals should be searched. The article cited suggests that the Cohen warrant was granted.
Who is stupid enough to down vote the previous two posts?
Out yourselves!
The answer to why people might downvote the text of the United States Constitution is the same as to why commenters (MDN and otherwise) might attack Apple’s efforts at educating children to tell the difference between verifiable facts and ideological fantasy. Because most Americans are never exposed to philosophy, logic, or rhetoric courses, they are buying into an extreme pop-science version of post-modern epistemology (the theory of knowledge) in which there is no difference between fact and opinion and all opinions are equally reasonable. If there are no facts, there can’t be any fact checking; a statement may express bad politics, but not bad facts when there are none.
On this assumption, truth and falsehood are replaced by facts and alternative facts. Fake news isn’t fake because it is false, there being no such thing, but only because it differs from the critic’s opinion. Every conceivable opinion deserves equal publicity, even if one opinion is held by 97% of the experts in the field and the other ten possible opinions by 0.3% each. Since there are no facts, but only opinions, all theories are equally valid (and invalid). Picking one to follow is a political choice, not an exercise of right reason based on science, evidence, or any other alleged facts.
So, these folks are perfectly capable of quoting the text of the Fourth Amendment (which plainly permits reasonable searches under proper judicial control) and claiming that it forbids all searches whatsoever. They can quote the Fifth Amendment, which simply does not apply to non-testimonial evidence, and claim it applies to searches and seizures of physical or electronic property. They can’t be wrong, because their opinion on the Constitution is just as valid as any other, up to and including judgements by the United States Supreme Court.
In this climate, it is hardly surprising that we have been repeatedly presented with photographs of the National Mall taken from the same viewpoint at 12:30 pm on January 20 2008 and 2016 and asked, “Who are you going to believe on the crowd size? Me or your lying eyes?” That can be marketed as an alternative fact combatting fake news, but only in an intellectual climate where facts no longer matter.
Obviously I meant Inauguration Day 2009 and 2017.