
The GovtOS Show - shawndumas
http://www.mondaynote.com/2016/02/28/the-govtos-show/
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protomyth
"Further, I find it hard to believe that President Obama — a professor of
Constitutional Law — doesn’t recognize that backdooring US technology is
inconsistent with his duty to protect our Constitution."

He's had 7 years to change the behavior of the Executive Branch in regards to
our rights versus how the departments operate and he hasn't done it. He either
doesn't believe in his duty to protect the US Constitution or regard any of
this as violating it.

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justanother
Another possibility that we are forced to consider is that the Executive is
not as unitary as it looks; There is likely severe coalition-building and
politics even within the Oval Office itself, such that even a Constitutional
scholar with good intentions could not realistically and singlehandedly
deliver on actions that would seem to be well within the scope of her powers.

~~~
abawany
My insight into this was by reading (listening to) the very long book by
Robert Gates called Duty. It described goings-on at the Department of Defense
during his time there and showed that even for this slice of government,
decisions were never clear cut, the factions many, and opinions numerous. Even
for something as clear cut (in retrospect) as the mission to get Bin Laden was
debated extensively.

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snowwrestler
I think that Gassee does not fully appreciate the impact of the independence
of U.S. law enforcement and judiciary.

Now that it's a court case, it _might not be possible_ for it to be
"delicately guided into a marsh of hearings and commissions". Its fate as a
court case will be determined by judges, who generally have no interest in
careful political management.

If the Justice Department loses, they can choose not to appeal, sure. But that
decision will have to come from within Justice. As far as I know, it is
illegal for the president to interfere with a criminal investigation.

If Apple loses, they will appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Ultimately the only thing that can short circuit the process now, is Congress.

Maybe that's why the FBI did what they did. As things stood until this case,
the default was that companies did not have to help. Congress would have to
pass a law to force them to. But if the FBI wins this case, the opposite will
be true: Congress would have to pass a law to limit the forced helping.

Betting on Congress is never a good idea, especially these days. So whoever is
happiest to ask Congress to the least, often wins. The FBI is betting that
there is a chance to flip the script.

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vessenes
It's interesting to tie this to Scalia's death, as Gassée mentions in the
article.

”There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes
insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.”
-- Antonin Scalia

The Supreme Court will stay in its new state for a while at least, and we may
see more cases like this pushed hard during the interim wherever he was a key
holder of a viewpoint.

On GovtOS I can imagine the next request after this software would be a
version only for senior US officials that can't be broken by the GovtOS tool.
I would find that a very frustrating and annoying request if I were designing
software at Apple or Google.

