…that we’re replaying the crypto wars. Terrorism and child pornography are evergreen weapons for scare mongering, it seems. If you’d like to know when I first got politicized about technology, Google for [Clipper chip].

> Mr. Cole offered the Apple team a gruesome prediction: At some future date, a child will die, and police will say they would have been able to rescue the child, or capture the killer, if only they could have looked inside a certain phone.
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> His statements reflected concern within the FBI that a careful criminal can shield much activity from police surveillance by minimizing use of cellphone towers and not backing up data.
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> The Apple representatives viewed Mr. Coles suggestion as inflammatory and inaccurate. Police have other ways to get information, they said, including call logs and location information from cellphone carriers. In addition, many users store copies of a phones data elsewhere.
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> During the hourlong meeting, Mr. Sewell said Apple wasnt marketing to criminals, but to ordinary consumers who store growing amounts of data about themselves on smartphones and are increasingly suspicious of tech companies. Many of those customers are outside the U.S., the Apple representatives said, where phone users want to shield information from governments that are less respectful of individual rights.
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> If the government wants more information from Apple, the company representatives said, it should change the law to require all companies that handle communications to provide a means for law enforcement to access the communications.
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> Mr. Cole predicted that would happen, after the death of a child or similar event.
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> More than once, Mr. Cole suggested there had to be a technical solutiona way to design a phone so that police, with a court order, can access information, without compromising security.
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> We cant create a key that only the good guys can use, Mr. Sewell responded.

(Cached copy. Or, at least for the next few days, you can get it by going to news.google.com and searching for ‘Apple and Others Encrypt Phones, Fueling Government Standoff’.)