Apple vs. the FBI: Who Should Win?

apple-vs-fbi-encryption-case-timelineThe fight between Apple and the FBI has become personal. Tim Cook’s interviews and Director Comey’s remarks to Congress each try to convince the public that they’re right. Like two cousins at a family reunion trying to convince Grandpa Dorfl that the other is a prick and shouldn’t get any of the inheritance.

It all started because law enforcement wants to gain access to an iPhone owned by the San Bernardino shooter, Syed Rizwan Farook. Unfortunately, there is a security feature on the phone, which would wipe all the data after a limited number of failed passcode attempts. And so, the FBI has used the All Writs Act of 1789 (passed by the very first Congress to tackle electronic encryption. OF COURSE!) to compel Apple to “update” the operating system on that phone alone, so that the FBI can guess Farook’s passcode as many times as it wants, without losing the data.

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USA: A Democracy or A Republic?

roman_senate

Not the Democracy. The Republic. We often like to use these words interchangeably. In our two party system, one of the parties is the Republican Party, the other the Democratic Party. Basically interchangeable. Not necessarily in terms of policy, especially these days, but in terms of what they mean. Seems kinda moot to discuss semantics here, right?

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War is Cheap

Paris Attack

Thomas Friedman published a book in 2005 called The World Is Flat. He wrote at great length about how this new age of communication, with the internet, has made it so much easier for developing countries and their populations to plug into the economies of the developed world, and really level the playing field. This same philosophy applies to war.

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Imran, Please Don’t Destroy All the Good Work!

Imran Khan’s and PTI’s march to Islamabad could potentially undo all the progress Pakistan has made with the peaceful transition of power from one democratically elected government to the next in 2013. This was the first time in Pakistan’s history that this has happened. In no small part, Imran Khan’s efforts are what made that election possible. He was able to energize the people of Pakistan by telling them that they could create a new Pakistan for themselves. Now, Khan is demanding that the Sharif government resign in light of election fraud and corruption claims. Instead of building on the progress the country made in 2013, Khan’s demands could take the country backwards. Read my open letter to Imran Khan, published on August 20th by the South Asia Monitor.

Read on the South Asia Monitor

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Understanding the 6th BRICS Summit: What to Look Out For

Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa make up a group of countries known as the BRICS. These countries have come together because they share many different economic challenges, but they are very far from each other in terms of their ideology and political systems. The 6th BRICS Summit begins in Brazil on July 15th. There are likely to be many tensions at play here. Not sure what to look out for when the summit actually gets underway? Read my article to get a better understanding of it. This was published in The South Asia Monitor on July 15, 2014

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Unchecked, but Not Unbound: The Role of Public Opinion in Pakistan’s Military Policy

Moving in line with public opinion is not new for the Pakistani military, but many analysts have failed to grasp the extent to which the Army’s options for any given scenario only exist within the universe created by public opinion. The article was published on July 2, 2014 by The South Asia Monitor.

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