21Feb 2016 by Lynda Waddington
Apple right to resist DOJ ask

Apple right to resist DOJ ask

Gazette Column
Apple has been ordered to develop software for a very important reason. Even so, the tech giant is right to resist. A magistrate judge, acting on a request by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, says Apple must help law enforcement disable safety features on an iPhone 5C. The device was owned by Syed Farook, who was part of the husband and wife shooting team in the San Bernardino attacks. Users of iPhones can choose to have data automatically deleted if an incorrect passcode is entered too many times. A secondary feature progressively slows down passcode guesswork. Both are safety features, intended to keep the user’s personal information and data private. The good news is, if the G-Men can’t bypass them on their own, the features obviously work. But the latest…
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16Nov 2014 by Lynda Waddington
FBI latest gov agency to use press

FBI latest gov agency to use press

Gazette Column
When the videotape of journalist Daniel Pearl’s brutal murder was released in 2002, it was handed to an undercover FBI operative posing as a journalist. The move was ironic because Pearl’s captors originally said they believed the Wall Street Journal editor was actually a CIA agent. Weeks before Pearl became a hostage, Editor & Publisher speculated on the risky and widespread use of journalist “covers” overseas, after Taliban defectors said they were approached by intelligence officers in Afghanistan pretending to be journalists. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a total of 1,082 media members have been killed since 1992 (the first year statistics were kept). Of those killed, 715 were murdered, a quarter of them in the Middle East and mostly in Iraq since 2003. Long before these statistics, however, if we are to…
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