The FBI is after Apple and we can't trust it

The intelligence service hasn’t let the San Bernardino attack go to waste

Tashfeen Malik, left, and Syed Farook died in a shoot-out with police (AP)

America is plagued by mass shootings. In 2012, 20 children and 6 teachers were mercilessly gunned down at Sandy Hook school. In 2013 a former Naval officer murdered 12 in Washington DC. The list goes on and on.

In none of cases has the FBI thought it necessary to obtain the power to hack every iPhone in America and undermine the private lives of every US citizen. Yet, the San Bernardino massacre in California has given the FBI an opportunity to significantly extend its powers.

The mass-murder at San Bernardino was committed by two radicalised Muslims, American citizen Syed Rizwan Farook and Pakistani Tashfeen Malik. As the FBI concluded, neither had any direct links to foreign jihadist movements, nor does it seem were they part of any wider conspiracy. As is far too often the case in the US, a few fringe individuals with a grievance committed a crime against their fellow Americans, with their desire to inflict as much damage as possible aided by the country's abundance of easily accessible guns.

The FBI hasn’t let the attack go to waste. It has demanded that Apple build a special version of the iPhone operating system – neutered of its most important security systems – that it would give to the FBI. This operating system would give the FBI the power to unlock any iPhone without a warrant from a judge. Worse still, the FBI has demanded Apple do this using an antiquated law from 1789, the All Writs Act. The FBI knows it couldn’t win this argument in the US Congress, so it’s trying to use an old law to force Apple’s hand.

In an open letter to its customers, Apple says it will comply with the FBI when it needs help in certain cases. "Apple complies with valid subpoenas and search warrants, as we have in the San Bernardino case," it stated. "We have also made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI, and we’ve offered our best ideas on a number of investigative options at their disposal."

But this is different. The FBI want the ability to access the iphones of every American Apple user, whether innocent or guilty of any crime. Consequently, the San Bernardino case will make every Apple product less secure: less secure for internet banking, less secure against viruses and less secure against foreign governments. It will set a precedent that could open Apple up to having to un-encrypt the phones of people who really do need privacy: underground human rights activists in authoritarian states such as Azerbaijan, China or Saudi Arabia.

There’s no evidence that the FBI even need this power. The key piece of information in this case – that the shooters were radicalised – was based on an un-encrypted Facebook post by one of the shooters praising Isis.

If I were American, I'd be wary of giving the FBI creeping powers. While it does a tough job, it has periodically overstepped its powers. The FBI wrote letters to Martin Luther King urging him to commit suicide, after a long period where they placed the civil rights activist under a comprehensive surveillance and harassment strategy. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, they even tried to break up Dr King’s marriage. If this can happen to one of America’s greatest leaders with a strong relationship with the president, it can happen to any law-abiding citizen. More recently, the FBI has been accused of facilitating terrorist plots in mainland America after major investigative exposes by the New York Times and The Intercept.

The US isn’t alone. The British government is planning to extend surveillance for the police and intelligence agencies through a new draft law, the Investigatory Powers Bill, which make the the FBI’s demands look like a model of restraint. The Bill is so draconian that Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, which is security cleared and has the closest working relationship with our intelligence agencies, has called for it to be significantly rewritten to protect privacy. The Committee found many of the powers in the Bill a step too far, in particular the government’s power to collect the details of every single website we visit. Hopefully the Government is going to redraft the entire Bill. If it doesn’t, Britain faces the most extensive system of surveillance of any democracy. It isn’t clear why.

Technology companies are sometimes painted by governments as aiding or abetting crime. Silicon Valley is the enemy, with its soft approach to terrorism, online bullying and cyber-crime. Yet, many of the people working in tech see the US and UK police and intelligence agencies and wonder why they’re so keen to extend their powers.

Why do they need access to the iPhones of people who haven’t committed any crimes? Why do they need our web browsing histories? Until governments come clean and are capable of making the case soberly in Parliament and in Congress this tension isn’t going away. Your smartphone may yet be the last defence of your privacy.