The government has neither the time nor interest to snoop into the daily lives of ordinary Americans — and critics of the FBI'a fight to unlock the iPhone of a California terrorist are wrong and "selfish" to think so, former FBI special agent Mark Rossini tells
Newsmax TV.
In a "Hard Line" panel Thursday, host Ed Berliner pointed out some people believe the FBI's fight with Apple to unlock shooter Syed Rizwan Farook's cell phone aims to "set precedent" and "find a new way to be intrusive."
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"Not only is it an erroneous statement, it's also a very selfish statement on their part," Rossini responded. "While we all have a right to privacy, we also have a right as a member of the U.S. society and the human race to be responsible to one another — and no one is above the law."
"They want to get into the iPhone only to find out who are connected to these murderous terrorists," he added. "There's no nefarious conspiracy theory here on part of the FBI or the federal government to get into people's private lives."
"The FBI doesn't have the time nor the resources — nor your local police department — to come knocking on your door every single day and say 'Oh by the way, did you visit such and such site yesterday?' or 'Did you meet at such and such restaurant?' … That's not part of the mission," Rossini said.
"The mission is to enforce the law and to go after the violators and killers and murderers and terrorists."
Rossini said federal agents need to engage in "massive community outreach" to communities affected by terrorism, as well as to be in places "where the bad guys are hanging out, where they're congregating to get to know them, to find out what's going on first — and then in the case of this iPhone, when necessary, they need to get into it to find and arrest the terror network."
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