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Op-Ed

FBI Conspiracy and Bad Hair Days

February 27, 2017

Devious theory update: The FBI doesn’t want you to know who figured out how to hack the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone. In case you forgot, I was the one who explained why the FBI was acting so weirdly about the iPhone last year. Now we have more evidence I was correct.

Milt Policzer

By Milt Policzer

Courthouse News columnist; racehorse owner and breeder; one of those guys who always got picked last.

[audio mp3="http://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/mp22317.mp3"][/audio]

Devious theory update: The FBI doesn’t want you to know who figured out how to hack the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone. In case you forgot, I was the one who explained why the FBI was acting so weirdly about the iPhone last year. Now we have more evidence I was correct.

Last week, The Associated Press, Gannett and Vice Media sued to make the government tell us who the hacker was and how much the feds paid him/her/it to unlock the phone.

The government will insist it can’t comply. Its reasons will be vague and perhaps incomprehensible.

That will prove my explanation: There was no hacking. The FBI just wants us to think they can get into our phones whenever they want.

But they can’t.

Follow the news to see how right I am.

Smash your phones if I turn out to be wrong.

By the way, you can find a nice example of vague and incomprehensible FBI arguments in a ruling from a federal judge in D.C. last week in another case about investigative technology.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center sued after asking the FBI for information about official assessments of the agency’s ability to protect personal information. The FBI turned over a lot of stuff but withheld 215 pages out of 2,490.

The explanation of why this happened mystified the federal judge. Read the last two long paragraphs before the conclusion of the ruling to see what I mean.

Favorite part: “(A declaration) states that the FBI has withheld such information to ‘protect the details pertaining to the information systems transmission pathways, the access portals for shared system initiatives, and the operational directives and integrity protocols of the information systems, system applications, databases, and program interface tools.’”

Which probably means they have no system in place.

Stay tuned.

Another theory. Google this phrase: “Long-winded speech could be early sign of Alzheimer's.”

Notice anything odd about the results?

Pretty much all the results are for news stories outside the United States, even though the stories are about a speech in Boston.

Fake news?

American censorship?

I find this very strange, particularly in light of my theory explaining Donald Trump’s behavior – early onset Alzheimer’s.

If this part of this column turns up missing, my theory will be proven.

A bad day. Those of you having a bad day may want to take a look at a Federal Court ruling in Louisiana last week called Robertson v. Home Depot. It will cheer you up, because things could be worse.

Here we learn of a lawyer who had to explain why her filings were late. She had a lot of reasons.

They included her computer being hacked, the court’s electronic scanning system not working properly, and her mother got sick.

“Finally, a spate of unexpected problems arose, counsel’s phone of two years

‘bricking’ and unexpected car troubles, (and) counsel and her mother inexplicably experiencing hair loss, despite having different hair care habits.”

It’s pretty much impossible to focus on your work when you and your mother are shedding.

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