The relationship of the administration of former President Donald Trump with technology was not the best and after a few months of his departure from the White House it was revealed that prosecutors from the Justice Department forced Apple to hand over data from the accounts of the Democrats of the Intelligence Commission.
According to a report by The New York Times, during 2017 and 2018, this department forced Apple to deliver metadata from Commission officials, including the current president of the Commission, Adam Schiff, and Representative Eric Swalwell. as well as a dozen people linked to the committee, including members of the Swalwell family, where at least one child was involved.
This information was also confirmed to CNN by Swalwell himself: “I know it is true. And I think they were targeted in a punitive manner, not for any legal reason, but because Donald Trump identified President Schiff and the members of the commission as his enemies, ”said the California representative.
According to the US newspaper, the investigations were looking for possible sources of leakage behind the news about the contacts between Trump’s aides and Russia. It should be remembered that the search for leaks began in February 2018, when the FBI sent a subpoena to Apple in which the metadata requirement of more than 100 accounts was mentioned.
Although one of the sources consulted by the Times highlighted that only metadata was provided and not photos or the content of emails, the relevance of this information is great, because through it you can know a lot about the user, more if it is combined with other details.
It is worth mentioning that in this matter Apple had a gag order, which was renewed three times, and could not communicate about these investigations to anyone. However, the reason this information came to light is because the Justice Department of the new administration decided to disclose the subpoenas.
It wasn’t until May of this year that Apple notified subjects that the Justice Department had issued subpoenas to obtain their information, an Intelligence Commission source told CNN.
“The commission has continued to seek additional information, but the Department has not communicated in a timely manner, including on issues such as whether the investigation was properly based and whether it was only directed at Democrats,” he told the television network.
The disclosure of this information is not a surprise, since it should be remembered that during the Trump administration investigations were carried out on the telephone records of journalists who worked for The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN, with the aim of revealing their sources and stop leaks to the press.
For his part, Adam Schiff said in a statement that the “although the Department informed us in May that this investigation is closed, I believe that more answers are needed, so the inspector general should investigate this and other cases that suggest that a president corrupt has used law enforcement as a weapon ”.
