Again, FBI can’t unlock a gunman’s cellphone
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, TEXAS» Authorities have reviewed video from inside the church where a gunman killed more than two dozen people, including footage that shows the assailant shooting victims in the head during Sunday services, a U.S. official said Wednesday.
The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. The church regularly recorded its services.
The same U.S. official confirmed that the attacker’s cellphone was an iPhone and that the FBI had not yet asked Apple for help obtaining data from the device.
Apple contacted the FBI to offer technical advice after learning that the bureau was trying to access the phone, according to a person familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity.
Security experts said proposed legislation that would force technology companies to give the FBI a back door to encrypted information on smartphones could expose a vast amount of private, business and government data to hackers and spies.
That’s because those backdoor keys would work for bad guys as well as good guys — and the bad guys would almost immediately target them for theft, and might even be able to recreate them from scratch.
Investigators may have other means to get the information they seek. If the Texas gunman backed up his phone online, they can get a copy of that with a legal order — usually a warrant.
They can also get warrants for any accounts he had at server-based internet services such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.
The FBI ultimately broke into the phone of a California terrorism suspect by paying an unidentified vendor for a hacking tool to access the gunman’s phone.
Meanwhile, more details emerged about the Texas gunman’s past. School records showed that Devin Patrick Kelley was a disciplinary problem in high school.
In fall 2006, Kelley’s sophomore year, he was suspended and sent to an alternative school for two months after an unspecified drug-related incident.
He was suspended twice as a junior and
three times as a senior for reasons including “insubordination,” ‘’profane language/gestures” and “dishonest/false records.”
With each passing year at New Braunfels High School, his grades slipped as well, according to the records.
A B-student overall as a freshman, he failed several classes by his senior year and ended up ranked 260 out of 393 students in his graduating class in 2009. He finished with a 2.3 grade-point average.
The records also listed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as one of his medical conditions.
A former friend said Kelley asked her for sexual favors and prevented his first wife from communicating with her friends.
Kelsey Huckaby told Austin television station KTBC that Kelley was “kind of controlling of his girlfriends” in high school.
Huckaby said she lost contact with Kelley until he responded to a Facebook post she made in April asking for a place to stay for her and her boyfriend. She said Kelley offered to let them stay in a trailer on his property if she performed weekly “sexual favors” for him.
Eleven people remained hospitalized with wounds they suffered in the attack.