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During todays White House press briefing which was occurring while the House Intelligence Committee was holding a hearing on Russian election interference White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about President Donald Trumps tweet this morning seemingly accusing Hillary Clinton of having ties to Russia.

Is he under the impression that the Clinton campaign had inappropriate contact with Russia during the election? One America NewssTrey Yingst asked.

After answering Yingsts first question about Trump slamming the DNC for not being forthright with the FBI regarding the hacks of their servers, Spicer then went onto the Clinton issue.

There is a whole second set of concerns here in terms of what was Hillary Clintons role, the press sec exclaimed. When you look at the Obama history the Obama administration and the Clintonthe Clinton involvement with Russia in terms of donations that the Clinton received from Russian entities, the idea that they sold off tremendous amount of the uranium to the Russian government, and yet where was the concern for that?

Bringing up Clinton signing off on a uranium deal with Russia when she was Secretary of State, Spicer wondered aloud, What did they get?

Watch the exchange above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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'What Was Hillary Clinton's Role?': Spicer Wonders Why No Concern About Hillary/Russia Collusion - Mediaite

The Clintons, Americas foremost would-be presidential dynasty, are apparently sticking around. Chelsea Clinton has new childrens book in the works. Its called She Persisted, a title provided by kid favorite Mitch McConnell.

Chelsea also has a Twitter account with over 1.5 million followers some of whom, we must assume, are actual living human beings. Her tweets, Politico tells us, are proof of a spicy and sarcastic online personality that has emerged since her mothers defeat.

But its not just Chelsea; Hillary persists as well. She said last week that she wants to come out of the woods and rejoin public life. There are also now at least two movies in production about her life, and thats not including the various dramatizations of the 2016 election weve been threatened with.

One concerns her brief fish-gutting days in Valdez, Alaska, after graduating from Wellesley in 1969. Being Hillary, shes told a few different versions of the story over the years, which should provide the screenwriter with a little extra room for creative license.

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While Hillary Clinton has remained largely out-of-sight after the election, she is scheduled to mark International Women's Day with a speech toni...

There must be an audience for all this Clinton stuff, right? Im no actuary, but if Hillary Clinton: Fishmonger costs very little to make, and everyone on the Upper West Side buys a ticket to see it, maybe it could make a modest profit?

Meanwhile, The Hill, a particularly traffic-savvy online outlet, writes up just about everything Chelsea tweets. There must be people who click these stories, if only because they keep getting written.

Yet the Clintons have been unusually immune to the laws of supply and demand. The Democratic Party, in its questionable wisdom, made a conscious decision to discourage primary challengers to Hillary in 2016. Her most recent memoir, the one with the title you cant quite remember, earned her a $14 million advance only to sell at a disappointing pace.

It can be said with confidence that there is at least one remaining audience for the Clintons. It exists among the denizens of certain neighborhoods of Washington, New York and L.A. who spent a lot of time and money over the last 25 years getting in with them. The payoff was supposed to come in 2017, when they were rewarded with ambassadorships, White House jobs, photo-ops, and the like. Clinton Inc., we should remind ourselves, was a Strong Buy until only recently. Perhaps market realities just havent set in yet among investors.

In any event, itd be foolish to expect that a machine like that would just shut down completely. The Clinton Global Initiative reportedly remains open, albeit smaller. The infrastructure theyve built cant go away with the flip of a switch. Nor should it, as far as the good work they do.

It could be that Clinton nostalgia is a real phenomenon. It certainly is among the aforementioned affluent people who supported their various endeavors. To make matters worse, Hillary won, or so they tell themselves. The Clinton restoration would be complete if it werent for the archaic Electoral College, and those dastardly Russians, and those gullible rubes wholl lose their insurance.

This belief is common among those of the high-professional class the urbanites who work in, say, publishing and the movie industry. The ones who can spend a few million on a ghostwriter for Chelsea and an ingnue to play Hillary.

Well see soon enough if Clinton nostalgia stretches beyond the coastal enclaves. But liberal nostalgia is, broadly speaking, having a moment. Lyndon Johnson has been rehabilitated in recent films and Broadway plays. There were two well-received movies about a young Barack Obama that hit theatres before he even left office. That Jackie Kennedy quasi-biopic starring Natalie Portman nearly snagged her another Oscar last month.

But the Kennedys have their tragic romance. LBJ, although far less romantic, was a tragedy too. Obamas story is a happier one. Wedged between George W. Bush and Donald Trump, millions of progressives will remember his tenure as an all-too-brief golden age.

But whats the selling point of the Clintons, anyway? Is their story a tragedy, a farce, something else? If its a tragedy, its likely now one of sunk costs; that the Clintons benefactors in the culture industry, having given so much over the years, just cant accept that its all over.

Hillarys loss was heartbreaking to many, but the story of that rich and directionless campaign will never easily inspire sympathy. The Clinton administration that was, with its costly deregulations and crime bills, not to mention Bills extramarital adventures with women decades younger, tends to look worse in hindsight.

Chelsea, meanwhile, is closing in on 40 without ever having what most would consider a real job. She seems busy, no doubt, but busy doing what? Sitting on corporate boards? Tweeting? Giving interviews?

Shell run for office at some point what could she be qualified to do otherwise? She might even snag a House seat one day. The appetite for Clintonism may be limited, but probably still can be found here and there around Manhattan. For whatever reason, it persists.

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Commentary: The odd persistence of Clinton Inc. - CBS News

On Monday, FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers testified in public before the House Intelligence Committee on President Trump's possible ties to Russia, and it didn't go well for Trump. Comey publicly acknowledged, for example, that the FBI is currently investigating Trump's team and whether it colluded with Russia to sway the election. "That is a huge, huge deal, and yet only 60 days into this administration, you hear that and you're, like, meh," Meyers said. "At this point Melania would have to take Trump on a high-speed chase in a Ford Bronco for us to say, 'This is unexpected! This is a twist I didn't see coming!'"

The Republicans on the committee appeared underwhelmed, too, "eager to focus on literally anything else," Meyers noted. Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), for example, asked the NSA director if Russia had tampered with the vote tally in certain states, "an allegation no serious person has made or is concerned about at all," and Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) tried to use a "very confusing college football analogy" to question the FBI's belief that Russia wanted Trump to win, and failed. "There's nothing better than watching someone dumb it down with a sports analogy and then lose the thread of that dumb sports analogy," Meyers said.

The other big news from the hearing is that Comey swatted down the idea that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump, and Rogers said Britain's GCHQ didn't, either. "There you have it America," Meyers said, "you can either trust the head of the National Security Agency or they guy who thinks 'tap' is spelled with two Ps."

Meyers also rolled his eyes at Trump's ice-cold meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, and his new suggestion that he will hold meetings at Mar-a-Lago because it's more convenient for everyone. "It's not convenient," Meyers said. "Everyone else works in Washington, D.C. You're the only one with a private club in Florida that you can get to via Air Force One." Trump has also adopted a new, worrisome nickname for that club, he added: "So why has the started calling it the Southern White House and stopped calling it the Winter White House? Because he's going to be there year-round, motherfers! Sorry, I'm sorry, I feel bad now. I shouldn't say that. I should say: He's gonna be there year-round, taxpayers!" Watch below. Peter Weber

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Donald Trump began one of the biggest days of his presidency with tweets about Hillary Clinton and 'fake news' - The Week Magazine

I have blogged a few times about a pending 3rd Circuit case on the Fifth Amendment standard for compelling the decryption of a hard drive. As I explained, the case presents an opportunity to weigh in on the 11th Circuits standard in a similar case that I think was erroneous. The 3rd Circuit handed down its decision this morning, United States v. Apple Mac Pro Computer. The court ruled for the government without resolving which standard applies. In a footnote, however, the court hinted that it disagreed with the 11th Circuit and would have adopted the standard that I think is right if it had to choose. Its just dicta, but its pretty strongly worded dicta.

I explained the legal issue in glorious detail in my prior post, but heres a quick overview. If the foregone conclusion doctrine applies, the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination doesnt bar the act of compelling entering in a password. The question is: What does the government need to show to establish a foregone conclusion? The 11th Circuit had held in its prior case that the government needs to show that the government knows with reasonable particularity what files are on the encrypted device. In my view, thats wrong. The foregone conclusion doctrine applies if the government can show that it knows that the subject knows the passcode.

The 3rd Circuit held that the Fifth Amendment issue was not preserved below, but that even if it should be reached it would not be plain error to say that there was no Fifth Amendment privilege:

Even if we could assess the Fifth Amendment decision of the Magistrate Judge, our review would be limited to plain error. See United States v. Schwartz, 446 F.2d 571, 576 (3d Cir. 1971) (applying plain error review to unpreserved claim of violation of privilege against self-incrimination). Does arguments fail under this deferential standard of review.

The 11th Circuits ruling was distinguishable on its facts:

Unlike [the 11th Circuits case], the Government has provided evidence to show both that files exist on the encrypted portions of the devices and that Doe can access them. . . . Based on these facts, the Magistrate Judge found that, for the purposes of the Fifth Amendment, any testimonial component of the production of decrypted devices added little or nothing to the information already obtained by the Government. The Magistrate Judge determined that any testimonial component would be a foregone conclusion. The Magistrate Judge did not commit a clear or obvious error in his application of the foregone conclusion doctrine.

The 3rd Circuit then dropped this very intriguing footnote, with a paragraph break added by me:

It is important to note that we are not concluding that the Governments knowledge of the content of the devices is necessarily the correct focus of the foregone conclusion inquiry in the context of a compelled decryption order. Instead, a very sound argument can be made that the foregone conclusion doctrine properly focuses on whether the Government already knows the testimony that is implicit in the act of production. In this case, the fact known to the government that is implicit in the act of providing the password for the devices is I, John Doe, know the password for these devices. Based upon the testimony presented at the contempt proceeding, that fact is a foregone conclusion.

However, because our review is limited to plain error, and no plain error was committed by the District Court in finding that the Government established that the contents of the encrypted hard drives are known to it, we need not decide here that the inquiry can be limited to the question of whether Does knowledge of the password itself is sufficient to support application of the foregone conclusion doctrine.

Theres a lot in that footnote that the government can use in future cases. Its dicta, but its very strong dicta. The issue will live for another day without a circuit split. But given that I think the footnote is correct, I hope it will be followed in future cases.

More here:
Third Circuit doesn't resolve standard for forced decryption under the ... - Washington Post

Thomas Trutschel/Getty Images

On Monday, a US federal appeals court sided against a former Philadelphia police officer who has been in jail 17 months because he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. He had refused to comply with a court order commanding him to unlock two hard drives the authorities say contain child porn.

Francis Rawls

The 3-0 decision(PDF) by the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appealsmeans that the suspect, Francis Rawls, likely will remain jailed indefinitely or until theorder (PDF) finding him in contempt of court is lifted or overturned. However, he still can comply with the order and unlock two FileVault encrypted drives connected to his Apple Mac Pro. Using a warrant, authorities seized those drives from his residence in 2015. While Rawls could get out from under the contempt order by unlocking those drives, doing so might expose him to other legal troubles.

In deciding against Rawls, the court of appeals found that the constitutional rights against being compelled to testify against oneself were not being breached. That's becausethe appeals court, like the police, agreed that the presence of child porn on his drives was a "foregone conclusion." The Fifth Amendment, at its most basic level, protects suspects from being forced to disclose incriminating evidence. In this instance, however, the authorities said they already knowthere's child porn on the drives, so Rawls' constitutional rights aren't compromised.

The Philadelphia-based appeals court ruled:

Forensic examination also disclosed that Doe [Rawls] had downloaded thousands of files known by their "hash" values to be child pornography. The files, however, were not on the Mac Pro, but instead had been stored on the encrypted external hard drives. Accordingly, the files themselves could not be accessed.

The court also noted that the authorities "found [on the Mac Book Pro] one image depicting a pubescent girl in a sexually suggestive position and logs that suggested the user had visited groups with titles common in child exploitation." They also said the man's sister had "reported" that her brother showed him hundreds of pictures and videos of child pornography. All of this, according to the appeals court, meant that the lower court lawfully ordered Rawls to unlock the drives.

"The Magistrate Judge did not commit a clear or obvious error in his application of the foregone conclusion doctrine," the court ruled. "In this regard, the Magistrate Judge rested his decision rejecting the Fifth Amendment challenge on factual findings that are amply supported by the record."

The suspect's attorney, Federal Public Defender Keith Donoghue, was disappointed by the ruling.

"The fact remains that the government has not brought charges," Donoghue said in a telephone interview. "Our client has now been in custody for almost 18 months based on his assertion of his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination."

A child-porn investigation focused on Rawls when the authorities were monitoring the online network, Freenet.

The decision from the appeals court comes as encryption is becoming more common on mobile phones and computers. What's more, encryption has seemingly become part of the national political discussion concerning whether governments should demand that companies bake backdoors into their encrypted products so that authorities can access content on encrypted devices.

The Supreme Court has never ruled on the forced decryption issue. A different federal appeals court, the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals based in Denver, ruled in 2012 that a bank-fraud defendant must decrypt her laptop. The order wasn't enforced, however, as the authorities eventually accessed the laptop without her assistance.

The contempt-of-court order against Rawls was obtained by authorities citing the 1789 All Writs Act. The All Writs Act was the same law the Justice Department asserted in its legal battle with Apple, in which a magistrate judge ordered Apple to produce code to enable the FBI to decrypt the iPhone used by one of two shooters who killed 14 people at a San Bernardino County government building. The government dropped the case when authorities paid a reported $1 million for a hack.

"Unless the suspect unlocks the drives or a court unwinds the order, he will remain jailed," Marc Rumold, an Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, said in a telephone interview.

In that brief, the EFF said "compelled decryption is inherently testimonial because it compels a suspect to use the contents of their mind to translate unintelligible evidence into a form that can be used against them. The Fifth Amendment provides an absolute privilege against such self-incriminating compelled decryption."

The authorities, however, said no testimony was needed from Rawls. Rather, they said, (PDF) "he can keep his passwords to himself" and "produce his computer and hard drives in an unencrypted state."

Read the rest here:
Man jailed indefinitely for refusing to decrypt hard drives loses appeal - Ars Technica