Blogging Birds

Blogging Birds

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Apple Vs FBI : Why I support Apple.

Last week, when one of my payments did not arrive to my bank, I was checking around ,why it did not reach despite the customer transferring the same to my company a week back.

Voila, I get a notice from the Investigation agencies via the bank on being checked for money laundering .  Because the payment transfer mentioned payment for ITF member order by the client.
Nevertheless, whatever details  the investigator wanted were submitted and detailed that ITF means, Indian Texprenuer Federation and not Islamic Terrorist Fxxxx etc. The link to the site was also submitted.

One week after submission of details by the bank, yet the payment did not arrive in my account and the customer did not get the shipment.

I write this story, so that the judge reads my blog, when deciding on FBI vs Apple case. How Investigation agencies behave ,once the law supports them. And why the law should not give freedom to check on people without recourse to court order.

Now in my case, the law is very clear, that payments above USD 10,000 can be checked  by the banks for money laundering by the transference, if under doubt and the bank has to provide the details of the r emitter, customer etc. However, the payment transfer in my case was only USD 900, which is peanut money for any investigator to spent his time. Yet , the law was randomly abused and 10 days later, my money was still not recd , t though very much legal and valid. Thanks to the money laundering law, which had been abused and me and my customer are still struggling to find our money, which was obstructed by the investigator.

But, what can you do, about it, you cannot fight a virtual authority, which chooses to be above law, despite the law being so clear . One does not go about fighting with such people for USD 900 and rather await , hoping things would be ok soon.  But all this happens, because the law was made to allow the investigation authority to check on USD transfers via banks.  See, what happens with the law now. Today, it is me, who was investigated for USD 900 legal transfer to my account from my customer and yet the payment not arriving after two weeks and exactly the same will happen in case of Apple, where the precedence  will be laid by one case  that they are trying to protect the nation against terrorist, but actually use the law each day on innocent people and obstruct genuine biz in the name of protection from terrorist.

Now the same authority, which allowed money laundering law to obstruct the payment of people , it should also factor cost of obstruction into the system. If money is stopped , it  does cost people their flow of work, the consequential damages need to be paid by the obstruct-or in each case. Why not put a penalty of USD10,000 for each wrong obstruction as minimum and maxm can be anything.. Investigations don`t need money movement to be stopped, it can still ask the r emitter or receiver for the information, but why obstruct.

Therefore, even if FBI needs to break into Iphone OS, than, let it find hackers to do the job. There are one too many in the market. Let not law support official obstruction, which starts on the basis of stopping a crime, but actually gets used in harassing common people and sometimes protecting from criminals. By the way, the criminals encryption of their biz is far more complicated than the backdoor management of checks by FBI.

Judge can still ask Apple to support the  investigation, but the data should be only given to the court and not to any agency . So that agencies are not the one, which are empowered by us. The court can still be authorized.  Similarly the code of conduct of each investigation needs to be well defined with penalties given for all wrong obstructions.

Simple, next time you sent an innocuous whatsapp message and say, it reads ITF or similar, which literally could be Intellectual Text Friends, but police of 7 countries comes knocking at your door to investigate and check and confirm that ITF does not mean Islamic Terrorist Friends. Thanks to the new law, if allowed.