This is one of those posts that sounds truthy because it makes a bunch of broad assertions. ;)
Legal systems are peopled by people. Just like other systems. Unlike many other systems, the American legal system is in fact highly distributed—so it's hard to say things like "The System is out to destroy you"; individual agents of that "system" might have different, misaligned, or antagonistic goals.
Much of this is by design.
Of course, even when not by design, the local, state, and federal agencies, elected officials, and judiciaries which make up "the government" comprise a massive, federated, distributed organization, far more complex, and far less centrally administered, than the most chaotic FAANG company.
So if you think Microsoft can't turn their product strategy on a dime, well, the US government isn't capable of reacting to the Cellebrite blog post this quickly (even if this subpoena didn't precede that post, as someone else pointed out).
(As an aside, while I'm not a lawyer, the question on "interstate wiring" seems rather obviously to suggest that the investigators are pursuing a theory of federal criminal charges that require the messaging to cross state lines. Getting Signal to say "yes, this is interstate" might just be something they need to convince a grand jury the theory applies.)
Signal seems secure from the outside, but is it? A judge won't simply take their word for it that they don't have the data, they'll make the order and see if anything turns up.
What if there's a misconfigured logging server that has information that can be used to identify users? Well then that's now going to be given to the government and if Signal tries to turn it off they'll be liable for destruction of evidence.
The actual employees of Signal know internal details of if something is poorly implemented and leaks useful information or not. If the government rattles the cage hard enough, they think they might find someone within it that will give up that information.
No. If they don't find an excuse plausible (possibly due to the objections of the counterparty), they might order production of evidence to support it.
A judge could in theory respond with 'orly, hand over source code'. What the judge could not do is say 'ok, source code shows you're telling the truth, but you should change it to record the information the prosecutor wants.' Only the legislative branch could do that.
A semantic argument about the scope of a synecdoche doesn't address the substance of whether Signal should underestimate the intent and consequences of a clumsy looking subpoena. Partisan and other exceedingly bad actors in a system necessarily have even better special protections than good ones, because they're the ones a system has to defend to defend the legitimacy of itself. Ask any union or profession that behaves like one. Signal has antagonized prosecutors as a class, and it's reasonable to expect some outwardly irrational behaviour from some individuals. They've hit the hornets nest.
Judging by how the the crypto wars played out the last few times, the "Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse" will be trotted out again soon, and probably with the addition of a new predictable character trope.
On a very macro level, tech humiliates intellectuals, politicians and other courtiers, or those who aspire to be them, and this motive is what makes forecasting a crackdown sparked by something like the Cellebrite pillorying seem reasonable.
> so it's hard to say things like "The System is out to destroy you";
How do you explain the 9th circuit court and their decisions around gun control while being scolded by SCOTUS for not following proper process? The legal system is highly politicized these days, and if your not on the “correct” side, it most definitely is out to get you. California turned a bunch of law abiding citizens into felons overnight after abiding by a law written by said government.
Legal systems are peopled by people. Just like other systems. Unlike many other systems, the American legal system is in fact highly distributed—so it's hard to say things like "The System is out to destroy you"; individual agents of that "system" might have different, misaligned, or antagonistic goals.
Much of this is by design.
Of course, even when not by design, the local, state, and federal agencies, elected officials, and judiciaries which make up "the government" comprise a massive, federated, distributed organization, far more complex, and far less centrally administered, than the most chaotic FAANG company.
So if you think Microsoft can't turn their product strategy on a dime, well, the US government isn't capable of reacting to the Cellebrite blog post this quickly (even if this subpoena didn't precede that post, as someone else pointed out).
(As an aside, while I'm not a lawyer, the question on "interstate wiring" seems rather obviously to suggest that the investigators are pursuing a theory of federal criminal charges that require the messaging to cross state lines. Getting Signal to say "yes, this is interstate" might just be something they need to convince a grand jury the theory applies.)