Reuters:
Members of the House Judiciary Committee are considering filing a “friend of the court” brief in Apple Inc’s encryption dispute with the U.S. government to argue that the case should be decided by Congress and not the courts, five sources familiar with the matter said.
Read the post for an explainer on this.
Congressman Darrell Issa, serving his district since 2001, wrote an op-ed piece for Wired, siding with Apple.
FBI Director James Comey and Apple Senior VP and General Counsel Bruce Sewell will be testifying Tuesday at 1p ET. You can watch it live, if you have access to C-SPAN.
A key meeting where things turned from amiable to adversarial.
This result is incomprehensible to me.
Core elements of the motion to vacate. An explainer.
A terrific two-part explainer about the All Writs Act. But more to the point, a terrific analogy about this case, worth reading.
You’ll no doubt hear more about the Fricosu case. According the EFF, the government is hanging their hat on this as a precedent.
Mark Cuban praises Apple, brings up some interesting points.
Apple’s proposed settlement was appealed, that appeal was denied.
Congressman Ted Lieu, the only computer scientist / lawyer in Congress, weighs in on the Apple vs the FBI issue. Smart words.
The linked post digs into the “can they” but not the “should they”.
Tim Cook posts a courageous letter to Apple customers laying out the FBI-driven court order and Apple’s thinking on this. Where do Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al, stand on this? Are they letting Apple fight their battle for them?
All the detail from the court order demanding Apple help the FBI unlock an iPhone from the December San Bernardino shooting case.
Just another domino falling. Our robotic overlord drivers are coming.
A new bill trying to stop the madness, introduced by someone with Computer Science and Law degrees.
The Norwegian police may have waited just a touch too long to make this decision.
Given that this is a retrial, can Apple appeal this verdict?
The way I read this, Newegg is a hero. They could easily have paid the troll and gone on with their business. But what they did serves the entire community. Standing up to a patent troll and winning shows that it can be done.
First New York, now California. The dominoes are falling.
This is a terrific piece from Rich Mogull, writing for TidBITS, that looks at why Apple stands alone in defending encryption. But the article goes further. It lays out the history of government monitoring of communications, as well as the arguments that drive both sides. Important topic.
Some analysis and math on Apple’s tax situation in Ireland. By my take, the reports are worst case and the math seems a little off.
This is troublesome, and outrageous on many levels. It obviously impacts Apple more than any other company.
Ouch.
Samsung is petitioning the Supreme Court to hear its appeal. That’s not the same as being on the Supreme Court docket. Also, there’s a link to an article that lays out the case details.
I love this idea. Could be a life saver.
Reuters:
A U.S. judge on Monday expressed strong doubts that he had the legal authority to order Apple Inc to access data on a locked iPhone that was seized as part of a federal investigation.
This case is ongoing and important.
Alexandra Alter, writing for the New York Times:
A United States appeals court ruled on Friday that Google’s effort to build a digital library of millions of books was “fair use” and did not infringe on the copyrights of authors.
Google scans books, puts them on line in some form. Authors Guild has fought this, next stop Supreme Court. More details in my post.
Moving on to damages phase. Could be up to US$862 million.
Joe Mullin, writing for Ars Technica, presents a story that has been flying around the internet:
More than two years after a documentary filmmaker challenged the copyright to the simple lyrics of the song “Happy Birthday,” a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the copyright is invalid.
But this is not quite a done deal.