Unit 4.3
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Recently the F.B.I. has been in a battle with Apple about hacking into an iPhone. The F.B.I. wanted Apple to remove some security features on an iPhone so that they could guess the password after they could not get around the encryption. Information was wanted off of the iPhone as a result of the investigation of the San Bernardino terrorist attack. This was not the first time that the F.B.I. has had to break through encryption as part of an investigation. Over a decade ago in 2003 they needed to access encrypted emails during the investigation of an animal welfare group called Operation Trail Mix. The group was involved in ecoterrorism and was using encryption to keep their emails secure. A process was developed that allowed the F.B.I. to read the emails. This operation was a secret until documents were obtained during a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit. This case shows that the F.B.I.'s recent fight with Apple is not over a new issue, it is just a continuation of a decade old debate.
The United States is run by a very large and complex bureaucracy. The F.B.I. is an example of a federal bureaucracy. It must follow the regulations from the Department of Justice which is part of the cabinet. When needing to hack into the iPhone and emails the F.B.I. needed to use discretionary authority to determine exactly how to go about solving this new problem. The public would not have known about these operations at all if documents were not released through the Freedom of Information Act.
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