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Apple vs. FBI debate

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By Amy Webb
Updated 12:53 PM ET, Mon February 29, 2016

Did FBI miss chance to get terrorist's iPhone info? 02:35

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Apple vs. FBI debate may be the least of our challenges (Opinion) - CNN.com

Story highlights
Technology is racing way ahead of the law,
creating ethical challenges once
inconceivable, says Amy Webb

10/12/16, 5)40 PM

Editor's Note: Amy Webb is a futurist and the CEO of

Webbmedia Group, which advises an international client base
on emerging technologies and trends. She is a lecturer at
Columbia University and a recent Visiting Nieman Fellow at
Harvard University. The opinions expressed in this
commentary are hers.

Lawmakers need to recreate an agency to

deal with the onrushing pace of technological
change

(CNN) Last week, a federal magistrate ordered Apple to

create a back door into the iPhone and thus set the stage for
the biggest and most important public debate about privacy
and security in this new technological era. Those in favor of
breaking encryption when it's in the public interest are our
government and its law enforcement agencies. Arguing against government intrusion into our digital freedoms are
tech companies and civil liberties groups.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said that "this moment calls for public
discussion." I agree. But it has to be the right one. We cannot
rely on lawsuits to trigger debate retroactively. Nor can we
wait for a court's decision to decide technology's future place
in our society. We must plan in earnest right now, together, for
the good of everyone.

Amy Webb

This is an issue that extends far beyond Apple and the FBI.
Today, we are arguing over an iPhone, and whether or not the
government can compel a tech company to help it break into
a device. Tomorrow's problems will be far more complex,
involving science and technology the likes of which you've
only ever read about in sci- books.

If anything, the case pitting the government against Apple

only illustrates the dire situation we now nd ourselves in: the
pace of scientic and technological change has surpassed our legal frameworks, our laws and the people charged
with making decisions that aTect us all.

Elected oUcials don't have the answers

We ought to be discussing these technologies before there's a tragedy--or an election year--forcing the debate
into a courtroom. But who among our elected oUcials is in a position to have that conversation? Of the 535
senators and representatives in the 114th Congress, only two hold doctorates in the natural and hard sciences.
There is one physicist, one microbiologist, one chemist and eight engineers spread across the House and Senate.
Back in 2008, former Rep. Rush Holt, D-New Jersey, told The New York Times that while there are 435 people in
the House, "420 don't know much about science and choose not to."

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Apple vs. FBI debate may be the least of our challenges (Opinion) - CNN.com

10/12/16, 5)40 PM

Our elected oUcials' lack of experience with technology

resulted in a similarly raucous debate that year: whether or
not electronic voting machines should be used. Arguing
whether or not a technology should be implemented after the
fact is a waste of time. Especially since, as Holt put it, the
potential glitches "would [have been] obvious to any
computer scientist but went right past some people here in
Congress."

Related Article: Phone security: Apple

vs. FBI is sign of dangerous divide

A Ph.D. in the hard sciences shouldn't be a requirement to

hold elected oUce in America. However, those responsible for
making and enforcing our laws ought to concern themselves
with tech that's over the horizon, especially since technology
now intersects with every facet of our daily lives.
Years ago, the now-shuttered OUce of Technology
Assessment was charged with researching, forecasting and
advising Congress on matters of emerging technology. During
its existence, the OTA released more than 750 prescient
studies ranging from robots in the workplace, to bioterrorism,
to acid rain and climate change. Without the OTA in place, the
Republican-led Congress, under Newt Gingrich, was free to
bring in its own lobbyists, think tanks and interest groups to
weigh in on important emerging science and technology
issues. Gingrich defunded the OTA in 1995, and it was a
mistake.

Aside from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

(DARPA), which is a military research-and-development
division, and IARPA, which is part of the OUce of the Director
Related Article: Apple encryption case:
of National Intelligence, the only agency left now to investigate
Billions are at stake
emerging science and technology is the Congressional
Research Service, which is a century-old division of the
Library of Congress. However, its primary concern is research
and analysis on existing policies and proposed legislation. There is no agency looking ahead into the future.
Without an unbiased arm of Congress left to evaluate the
meaning of emerging science and technology, we have
abdicated our future to a motley crew of interest groups, law
enforcement agencies, elected oUcials and CEOs. It's a
terrifying prospect.

Related Article: FBI snooping at Apple

It's precisely that lack of planning and foresight that enabled

the blowup involving Apple and the FBI. Because there are no
other legal frameworks to use, the government is citing an
ancient and obscure law called the All Writs Act, which was
originally passed in 1789. For context, that was the year that
Thomas JeTerson was appointed our rst-ever secretary of
state and the cutting-edge technology he employed in oUce
was a quill and parchment.

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'backdoor' makes you less safe

Think big
If you think we've reached the zenith of this debate now that Apple and the FBI are in court, you're not thinking big
enough.
For example, if you use an iPhone 6, you probably unlock it using your ngerprint. If you have an arrest record, a
law enforcement agency already has your ngerprints. It wouldn't be diUcult to transfer them on to a model to
unlock the data on your seized phone. However, in this case, who technically owns the right to your ngerprint?
Once your biometric data is in a government database, does the FBI have the legal clearance to use it to unlock
any of your devices? Right now, there is no clear answer.
What happens if someone sexually abuses another person in a virtual world? When you're wired in to a virtualreality experience, studies have shown that our actual sense of reality is distorted. (I have ample experience using
VR, and I agree.) When something happens in a virtual world, that visceral experience is encoded in our memories
as if it actually happened. There are federal laws explicitly prohibiting sexual assault, but what happens when the
attack occurs between two players in a virtual reality game?
What happens in the future, when your encrypted technology goes rogue? In fact, that has already happened. The
Random Darknet Shopper, an art project and bot, was programmed to make a random Internet purchase every
day using bitcoins. Once, it bought 10 ecstasy pills and a fake Hungarian passport.. Who's at fault, the coder or the
technology? Again, we don't have any laws covering bots written by humans. Indeed, our lawmakers haven't even
had the necessary conversations about our impending bot-assisted society.

iPhone encryption may be an easier issue

Relatively speaking, encryption is much less confounding than the other emerging technologies of our near future.
CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene-editing technique allowing scientists to redesign precise positions on DNA using a
bacterial enzyme. It can be used to edit mosquitoes so that they no longer carry malaria but, as we've seen in a
recent paper published by Chinese researchers -- it can also be used to edit human embryos. What happens when
divorced, acrimonious parents want to sue over the rights to edit their children's DNA?
Did you know that in a handful of labs, researchers are testing systems that allow monkeys to send their thoughts
to each other over the Internet? Or that in one experiment, a monkey was able to control the arm of another
monkey who wasn't even in the same room? That technology will someday help stroke victims learn to walk again.
And it could also be weaponized, giving soldiers superhuman powers. Inevitably, lawmakers are going to get
involved, and that debate is going to make us long for the days when we bickered about iPhone encryption.
This is certainly not an argument for more government regulation. It is also not a free pass for tech companies to
ignore the fact that humans use their devices, and we have a track record of being horrible to each other.
Instead, it is a call for our lawmakers to acknowledge that the future is coming and to depoliticize the technology
that's on our horizon. Like it or not, they must play an informed, active role in how technology intersects with
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American society. That cannot mean leaving that research to

outside interest groups, or passing oT that responsibility to
young, "connected" staTers who know how to Snapchat.

Related Article: Xiaomi's Lei Jun is

changing the U.S., as well as China

We cannot be in reactive mode all the time. Our strongest

option is to reinstate the OTA, and to do it now. Short of that,
the best choice is for lawmakers and law enforcement
agencies to seek out highly qualied, nonpartisan scientists
and technologists who seek nothing in return, aside from their
having their voices heard. Listen to what they have to say and
act on their advice. Empower them to help us make better
decisions for our future, here in the present.
Note: An earlier version incorrectly described IARPA as a
military agency.
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3Dave1902 Mar 1, 2016

We didn't have an ethical problem with breaking the Nazi code book. Why should we
view terrorists any diTerently? If anything, a lower threshold would be appropriate with
the covert enemies within our borders.

On this issue of breaking into a specic device of a known killer, Apple is way oT base.
Notice how they continually want to change the argument? Is Apple wishing to harbor
our enemies, or provide a save haven for them? Putting their prots over national
security?
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notaproblem Feb 28, 2016

while I agree that the author has identied an issue worth consideration I do not believe
that concerns can be properly decided without actual context
Flag Share

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MbjrP36 Feb 26, 2016

The US also has the problem of rivaling Russia and Japan as the most technophobic
nation on planet earth. To wit, a member of Congress can question something essential
like the auto-pen and be treated as a legitimate question by anyone other than the
"lunatic" fringe.
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Apple vs. FBI debate may be the least of our challenges (Opinion) - CNN.com

10/12/16, 5)40 PM

AcNhTrIist Feb 26, 2016

Apple is lucky I am not President. If I were the FCC would have issued a rule banning
Apple devices from using any frequency band in the US.
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iceload9 Feb 26, 2016

Behind closed doors Fieinstein see's herself as "M" from the James Bond series.
Collecting millions of phone calls from American citizens which we would never have
known without Snowden. She is now calling for more pressure on Apple. There is the
terrorist threat but there is always a threat. The black listing of accused communists in
the 50's, the domino eTect in the 60's, threats go back to the British in the 1700's. Are
we prepared to become a police state?
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miscreantall Feb 26, 2016

@iceload9

Yeah, "we are prepared to become a police state".

The Patriot Act solidied that.

Along with the NRA I foresee a future that looks very much like the movie series:
The Purge

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Apple vs. FBI debate may be the least of our challenges (Opinion) - CNN.com

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faithkil Feb 26, 2016

Amy you have a very good point. I've been saying the same thing for years. most
management and government oUcials don't know enough about the tech that makes
everything run, but will be the rst to complain when it fails do to lack funding or R&D to
advance it to the next iteration.

We have a Surgeon General for health legislation why not a Technocrat General to over
see technology related legislation, and they could confer on Bio-tech.

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wolf776 Feb 25, 2016

There are already laws against exporting technology that enemies could us against the
US. If Apple wants to put it's phones in that class of things then let them forego
overseas sales.
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