Expert helped Los Angeles police hack Apple iPhone: court records

LOS ANGELES - A cellphone expert overrode the lock function on an Apple iPhone to help Los Angeles police in a homicide investigation around the time U.S. authorities were battling the company to open other phones in criminal cases, court records showed on Thursday.

The successful hack of the iPhone 5s in the Los Angeles case is another sign U.S. authorities are turning to third-party contractors to unlock smartphones rather than relying on manufacturers like Apple Inc., which helped in the past. The third-party hacks have Apple racing to strengthen its encryption technology.

Los Angeles police gained access to the iPhone of April Jace, the wife of "The Shield" actor Michael Jace, who is accused of shooting her to death, at their home in May 2014.

Police investigators learned on March 18 that a forensic cellphone expert, whose identity was not released, could "override the locked iPhone function" on April Jace's phone to extract data, Detective Connie Zych wrote in a search warrant affidavit.

That was around the time the U.S. government was locked in a legal battle with Apple over requests the company unlock the iPhone 5c used by Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters in the San Bernardino killings.

Apple refused to bypass the encryption features on Farook's phone on grounds it could undermine security for all users. The company declined to comment on the Jace case.

The override of April Jace's iPhone 5s was less of a technical feat than the unlocking of Farook's iPhone 5c.

Jace's phone predated the iOS 8 operating system, which Apple introduced in fall 2014 with strengthened encryption methods. The contractor who unlocked Farook's iPhone 5c had to get past iOS 9, an operating system released in September 2015.

Apple helped authorities gain access to iPhones about 70 times before changing its position last year, court documents have shown.

It was unclear which OS was installed on Jace's iPhone. Her killing came after Apple released iOS 7, but before iOS 8.

In another high-profile case, the U.S. Department of Justice fought Apple in court seeking to force the company to assist authorities in accessing an iPhone 5S with iOS7 seized as evidence in a New York drug case.

Last month, the Department of Justice dropped the effort when it disclosed someone provided authorities the passcode to the device.

The hack of April Jace's iPhone appears to be related to an order in January by the judge to allow Michael Jace's defense team access to the phone.

Michael Jace's attorney in January argued in court the actor suspected his wife was having an affair and may have become enraged moments before the shooting, after seeing something on her iPhone, according to a report at the time from the New York Daily News.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Apple v FBI, is my iPhone safe?

NEW YORK — On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered Apple Inc. to help the FBI hack into an encrypted iPhone used by Syed Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in December. Specifically, the government wants Apple to bypass a self-destruct feature that erases the phone's data after too many unsuccessful attempts to guess the passcode. Apple has helped the government before in this and previous cases, but this time Apple CEO Tim Cook said no and Apple is appealing the order.

What's the big deal? Why isn't Apple cooperating, and what does this mean for ordinary iPhone users? AP explains:

WHY ALL THE FUSS?

The clash brings to a head a long-simmering debate between technology companies whose business relies on protecting digital privacy (except, ahem, where advertising is concerned) and law enforcement agencies who say they need the ability to recover evidence or eavesdrop on the communications of terrorists or criminals to do their job. This is the first major case that requires the two sides to present their arguments in court, so it could ultimately affect millions of smartphone users.

IT'S JUST ONE IPHONE. AND THIS COULD HELP CATCH TERRORISTS. SO WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?
While the judge on the case says the government is only asking for help unlocking one, single iPhone, Apple says the case is much bigger than that and sets a dangerous precedent. Cook says the company doesn't have a system to bypass the self-destruct one. And if it creates one, the technology it creates could eventually be used to work against other iPhones. Then everyone's iPhone would potentially be less secure. As Apple CEO Cook said, "Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes."


IS MY IPHONE STILL SECURE?

Yes. The technology being debated doesn't even exist yet. So what does this mean for your iPhone? In the short term, nothing. The case is likely to drag on for months — even years, if it works its way through appeals to the Supreme Court. But ultimately, the case could set the standard for just who has access to private data — the private message, photos and other data you store on your phone — and could cause millions of smartphones users to rethink what they store on their phones.

WILL MY DISGRUNTLED EX OR FORMER BOSS BE ABLE TO HACK INTO MY PHONE?

Not likely. Even if the technology is ultimately built and ruled legal, it would only be used by governments, or maybe cybercriminal masterminds. But probably not the average Joe next door — though you might want to watch out for his brilliant, disaffected hacker kid. (Also, all bets are off if you're talking about a phone provided by your employer, who already has the right to any information stored there.)

source: philstar.com

Apple likely to invoke free-speech rights in encryption fight

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc. will likely seek to invoke the United States' protections of free speech as one of its key legal arguments in trying to block an order to help unlock the encrypted iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, lawyers with expertise in the subject said this week.

The tech giant and the Obama administration are on track for a major collision over computer security and encryption after a federal magistrate judge in Los Angeles handed down an order on Tuesday requiring Apple to provide specific software and technical assistance to investigators.

Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook called the request from the Federal Bureau of Investigation unprecedented. Other tech giants such as Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google have rallied to support Apple.

Apple has retained two prominent, free-speech lawyers to do battle with the government, according to court papers: Theodore Olson, who won the political-speech case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, and Theodore Boutrous, who frequently represents media organizations.

Government lawyers from the U.S. Justice Department have defended their request in court papers by citing various authorities, such as a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld an order compelling a telephone company to provide assistance with setting up a device to record telephone numbers.

The high court said then that the All Writs Act, a law from 1789, authorized the order, and the scope of that ruling is expected to be a main target of Apple when it files a response in court by early next week.

But Apple will likely also broaden its challenge to include the First Amendment's guarantee of speech rights, according to lawyers who are not involved in the dispute but who are following it.

Compared with other countries, the United States has a strong guarantee of speech rights even for corporations, and at least one court has ruled that computer code is a form of speech, although that ruling was later voided.

Apple could argue that being required to create and provide specific computer code amounts to unlawful compelled speech, said Riana Pfefferkorn, a cryptography fellow at Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society.

The order against Apple is novel because it compels the company to create a new forensic tool to use, not just turn over information in Apple's possession, Pfefferkorn said. "I think there is a significant First Amendment concern," she said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles declined to comment on the possible free-speech questions on Thursday.

A speech-rights argument from Apple, though, could be met with skepticism by the courts because computer code has become ubiquitous and underpins much of the U.S. economy.

"That is an argument of enormous breadth," said Stuart Benjamin, a Duke University law professor who writes about the First Amendment. He said Apple would need to show that the computer code conveyed a "substantive message."

In a case brought by a mathematician against U.S. export controls, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers California, found in 1999 that the source code behind encryption software is protected speech. The opinion was later withdrawn so the full court could rehear the case, but that rehearing was canceled and the appeal declared moot after the government revised its export controls.

The FBI and prosecutors are seeking Apple's assistance to read the data on an iPhone 5C that had been used by Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out the San Bernardino shootings that killed 14 people and wounded 22 others at a holiday party.

U.S. prosecutors were smart to pick the mass shooting as a test case for an encryption fight with tech companies, said Michael Froomkin, a University of Miami law professor. That is because the shooting had a large emotional impact while also demonstrating the danger posed by armed militants, he said.

In addition, the iPhone in dispute was owned not by Farook but by his employer, a local government, which has consented to the search of the iPhone. The federal magistrate who issued the order, Sheri Pym, is also a former federal prosecutor.

"This is one of the worst set of facts possible for Apple. That's why the government picked this case," Froomkin said.

Froomkin added, though, that the fight was enormously important for the company because of the possibility that a new forensic tool could be easily used on other phones and the damage that could be done to Apple's global brand if it cannot withstand government demands on privacy. "All these demands make their phones less attractive to users," he said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Privacy vs security at heart of Apple phone decrypt order

A court order demanding that Apple Inc help the U.S. government unlock the encrypted iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters is shaping up as a crucial test case of how far the government can go in forcing technology companies to help security and intelligence investigations.

Law enforcement agencies have for years faced off against tech firms and privacy advocates over their ability to monitor digital communications, and the government to date has largely lost the battle.

But the specific circumstances of the San Bernardino case, a young married couple who sympathized with Islamic State militants and killed 14 people and wounded 22 others in a shooting rampage at a holiday party, could give government officials the legal precedent they need to reverse the tide.

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Tuesday ordered Apple to provide "reasonable technical assistance" to investigators seeking to read the data on an iPhone 5C that had been used by Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out the shootings.

The government argues that the iPhone is a crucial piece of evidence. But civil liberties groups warn that forcing companies to crack their own encryption endangers the technical integrity of the Internet and threatens not just the privacy of customers but potentially that of citizens of any country.

On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates came out strongly on the side of law enforcement, raising the possibility of another legislative effort to require tech companies to put "backdoors" in their products.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Department of Justice was asking Apple for access to just one device, a central part of the government's argument, which Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has said was "simply not true."

"They are not asking Apple to redesign its product or to create a new backdoor to one of their products," Earnest told reporters at a daily briefing.

The Department of Justice stressed in a statement on Wednesday that its request was "narrowly tailored," and chided Apple. "It is unfortunate that Apple continues to refuse to assist the department in obtaining access to the phone of one of the terrorists involved in a major terror attack on U.S. soil."

Most technology security experts, including many who have served in government, have said technical efforts to provide government access to encrypted devices inevitably degrades security for everyone. It is an argument that has been made since the 1990s, when the government tried and failed to force tech companies to incorporate a special chip into their products for surveillance purposes.

"The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone," Cook said in a statement on Tuesday. "But that's simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices."

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai endorsed Cook's stance in tweets on Wednesday.

"We build secure products to keep your information safe and we give law enforcement access to data based on valid legal orders," he wrote. "But that's wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices & data. Could be a troubling precedent."

LEGAL FIGHT

Representatives of several tech companies did not respond to requests for comment on the ruling. Not surprisingly, however, trade groups that count thousands of software companies, smartphone makers and network security firms as members decried the government's position, while law enforcement groups backed the Justice Department.

The industry was "committed to working with law enforcement to keep Americans safe," the Software & Information Industry Association said, but in the Apple case, "the government's position is overbroad and unwise."

The Computing Technology Industry Association said if the order was carried out, "it could give the FBI the power to call for some sort of back end to encryption whenever they see fit."

If the federal judge, Magistrate Sheri Pym, rejects Apple's arguments, the Cupertino, California-based company can appeal her order to the district court, and then up the chain to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 9th Circuit is known to be pro-privacy. "The government ultimately will have an uphill fight," said Robert Cattanach, a former Justice Department lawyer who advises companies on cyber security issues.

Farook was assigned the phone by the county health department for which he worked, prosecutors said in a court filing on Tuesday. The health department had "given its consent" to authorities to search the device and to Apple to assist investigators in that search, the document said.

San Bernardino County's top prosecutor, District Attorney Mike Ramos, said Apple's refusal to unlock the phone was a slap in the face to the victims of the shooting and their families.

"They'd like to know details like any of us in America would like to know. Were there other threats? Were there other individuals involved?" Ramos said in a telephone interview.

'MASTER KEY'

Dan Guido, an expert in hacking operating systems, said that to unlock the phone, the Federal Bureau of Investigation would need to install an update to Apple's iOS operating system so investigators could circumvent the security protections, including one that wipes data if an incorrect password is entered too many times.

He said only Apple could provide that software because the phones will only install updates that are digitally signed with a secret cryptographic key.

"That key is one of the most valuable pieces of data the entire company owns," he said. "Someone with that key can change all the data on all the iPhones."

The notion of providing that key is anathema to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online rights group. "Once this master key is created, governments around the world will surely demand that Apple undermine the security of their citizens as well," the foundation said in a statement.

Lance James, an expert in forensics who is chief scientist with cyber intelligence company Flashpoint, said Apple could respond to the order without providing crypto keys or specialized tools that could be used to unlock other phones.

Apple technicians could create software that would unlock the phone, allowing the company to create a backup file with all of its contents that they could provide to law enforcement, James said.

American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Alex Abdo said the government's request risked a "dangerous" precedent. "The Constitution does not permit the government to force companies to hack into their customers' devices," he said.

Apple was a topic of discussion on the presidential campaign trail on Wednesday.

Donald Trump, front-runner for the Republican Party's nomination to run in the Nov. 8 election, said on Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends, "I agree 100 percent with the courts. In that case, we should open it (the iPhone) up ... We have to use common sense."

Another Republican candidate, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, called it a "tough issue" that would require government to work closely with the tech industry to find a solution. Rubio said he hoped Apple would voluntarily comply with the court order.

(Additional reporting by Megan Cassella, Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey in Washington, Steve Holland, Julia Love and Dan Levine in San Francisco, Sharon Bernstein in Los Angeles; Writing by Grant McCool; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Jonathan Weber, Toni Reinhold)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Social media companies step up battle against militant propaganda

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook, Google and Twitter are stepping up efforts to combat online propaganda and recruiting by Islamic militants, but the Internet companies are doing it quietly to avoid the perception that they are helping the authorities police the Web.

On Friday, Facebook Inc said it took down a profile that the company believed belonged to San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband is accused of killing 14 people in a mass shooting that the FBI is investigating as an "act of terrorism."

Just a day earlier, the French prime minister and European Commission officials met separately with Facebook, Google, Twitter Inc and other companies to demand faster action on what the commission called "online terrorism incitement and hate speech."

The Internet companies described their policies as straightforward: they ban certain types of content in accordance with their own terms of service, and require court orders to remove or block anything beyond that. Anyone can report, or flag, content for review and possible removal.

But the truth is far more subtle and complicated. According to former employees, Facebook, Google and Twitter all worry that if they are public about their true level of cooperation with Western law enforcement agencies, they will face endless demands for similar action from countries around the world.

They also fret about being perceived by consumers as being tools of the government. Worse, if the companies spell out exactly how their screening works, they run the risk that technologically savvy militants will learn more about how to beat their systems.

"If they knew what magic sauce went into pushing content into the newsfeed, spammers or whomever would take advantage of that," said a security expert who had worked at both Facebook and Twitter, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

One of the most significant yet least understood aspects of the propaganda issue is the range of ways in which social media companies deal with government officials.

Facebook, Google and Twitter say they do not treat government complaints differently from citizen complaints, unless the government obtains a court order. The trio are among a growing number that publish regular transparency reports summarizing the number of formal requests from officials about content on their sites.

But there are workarounds, according to former employees, activists and government officials.

A key one is for officials or their allies to complain that a threat, hate speech or celebration of violence violates the company's terms of service, rather than any law. Such content can be taken down within hours or minutes, and without the paper trail that would go with a court order.

"It is commonplace for federal authorities to directly contact Twitter and ask for assistance, rather than going through formal channels," said an activist who has helped get numerous accounts disabled.

In the San Bernardino case, Facebook said it took down Malik's profile, established under an alias, for violating its community standards, which prohibit praise or promotion of "acts of terror." The spokesman said there was pro-Islamic State content on the page but declined to elaborate.

ACTIVISTS MOBILIZE

Some well-organized online activists have also had success getting social media sites to remove content.

A French-speaking activist using the Twitter alias NageAnon said he helped get rid of thousands of YouTube videos by spreading links of clear cases of policy violations and enlisting other volunteers to report them.

"The more it gets reported, the more it will get reviewed quickly and treated as an urgent case," he said in a Twitter message to Reuters.

A person familiar with YouTube's operations said that company officials tend to quickly review videos that generate a high number of complaints relative to the number of views.

Relying on numbers can lead to other kinds of problems.

Facebook suspended or restricted the accounts of many pro-Western Ukrainians after they were accused of hate speech by multiple Russian-speaking users in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign, said former Facebook security staffer Nick Bilogorskiy, a Ukrainian immigrant who helped some of those accounts win appeals. He said the complaints have leveled off.

A similar campaign attributed to Vietnamese officials at least temporarily blocked content by government critics, activists said.

Facebook declined to discuss these cases.

What law enforcement, politicians and some activists would really like is for Internet companies to stop banned content from being shared in the first place. But that would pose a tremendous technological challenge, as well as an enormous policy shift, former executives said.

Some child pornography can be blocked because the technology companies have access to a database that identifies previously known images. A similar type of system is in place for copyrighted music.

There is no database for videos of violent acts, and the same footage that might violate a social network's terms of service if uploaded by an anonymous militant might pass if it were part of a news broadcast.

Nicole Wong, who previously served as the White House's deputy chief technology officer, said tech companies would be reluctant to create a database of jihadists videos, even if it could be kept current enough to be relevant, for fear that repressive governments would demand such set-ups to pre-screen any content they do not like.

"Technology companies are rightfully cautious because they are global players, and if they build it for one purpose they don't get to say it can't be used for anything else," said Wong, a former Twitter and Google legal executive.

"If you build it, they will come - it will also be used in China to stop dissidents."

TRUSTED FLAGGER

There have been some formal policy changes. Twitter revised its abuse policy to ban indirect threats of violence, in addition to direct threats, and has dramatically improved its speed for handling abuse requests, a spokesman said.

"Across the board we respond to requests more quickly, and it's safe to say government requests are in that bunch," the spokesman said.

Facebook said it banned this year any content praising terrorists.

Google's YouTube has expanded a little-known "Trusted Flagger" program, allowing groups ranging from a British anti-terror police unit to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights organization, to flag large numbers of videos as problematic and get immediate action.

A Google spokeswoman declined to say how many trusted flaggers there were, but said the vast majority were individuals chosen based on their past accuracy in identifying content that violated YouTube's policies. No U.S. government agencies were part of the program, though some non-profit U.S. entities have joined in the past year, she said.

"There's no Wizard of Oz syndrome. We send stuff in and we get an answer," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Wiesenthal Center's Digital Terrorism and Hate project.

(Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Tiffany Wu)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

All 14 victims of California shooting named

LOS ANGELES, United States - Six women and eight men were the victims of the mass shooting in California, US authorities said Thursday, releasing the names of all 14 of the dead.

The youngest victim of the carnage carried out Wednesday by a husband and wife in the city of San Bernardino was 26 and the oldest was 60.

"This shooting has caused each victim's family, friends and co-workers, along with the first responders, to suffer an enormous personal tragedy," said San Bernardino Sheriff John McMahon in a statement.

"We must stand strong and offer support to each individual affected by this senseless attack."

The victims were identified as:

Shannon Johnson, 45
Bennetta Bet-Badal, 46
Aurora Godoy, 26
Isaac Amanios, 60
Larry Kaufman, 42
Harry Bowman, 46
Yvette Velasco, 27
Robert Adams, 40
Sierra Clayborn, 27
Nicholas Thalasinos, 52
Tin Nguyen, 31
Juan Espinoza, 50
Damian Meins, 58
Michael Wetzel, 37

They died when Syed Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, burst into a social services center hosting a holiday party and sprayed the room with bullets.

Farook had attended the party but had apparently left following a dispute, only to return heavily armed with his wife.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Pinoys in shock over latest mass shooting in California

CALIFORNIA – Filipinos working around the San Bernardino area where a mass shooting occurred were shocked by the incident.

Filipino Jasmine Barnes was at a nearby building when three armed people opened fire at the Inland Regional Center, killing 14 people and injuring 17 others on Wednesday afternoon.

A San Bernardino county employee, Barnes was at the center herself recently and works with many of the people inside.

"We work closely with them. I'm just afraid to ask kung sino yung mga victims. Nakakatakot talaga. I just don't feel safe sometimes anymore you know. I just pray that God will protect us," said Barnes.

While the incident was confined to the Inland Regional Center, most of the surrounding areas were affected.

Some Filipino women working for a remittance and cargo company just down the street from the incident said many of their Filipino customers work near and around the Center.

"It's kind of scary for us, even though we are here, but the thing is, it happened just near in this place," one of the Pinays said.

Another Pinay commented "Everybody is scared. It's the first time."

The latest mass shooting prompted several hours of lock down and closures. After hours of lockdowns, two suspects were shot and killed by officers while a third was apprehended.


Read more on Balitang America:

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Two suspects dead after 14 killed in shooting rampage in California

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - A man and a woman suspected of taking part in a shooting attack that killed 14 people and wounded 17 at a Southern California social services agency on Wednesday died in a shootout with police hours later, authorities said.

One police officer was injured in the gunfight with the two suspects, who were confronted in their getaway vehicle after fleeing the scene of the shooting in San Bernardino, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles, according to police.

The shooting rampage marked the deadliest U.S. gun violence since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, in which 27 people, including the gunman, were killed.

Authorities also detained an individual seen running away from the vehicle, but investigators were not immediately sure that person was involved in the case, Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said at a news conference.

The chief said it was possible that a third shooter remained at large and that there were other people "involved in the planning" of the crime.

Burguan said the two suspects who were killed were armed with assault rifles and handguns and were dressed in "assault-style" clothing.

NBC News reported one of the three suspects was identified as Syed Farook by multiple sources, but Reuters was not able to confirm that.

HOLIDAY PARTY

A person by that name was listed on county documents as an employee of the San Bernardino County Environmental Health Department. That department had gathered on Wednesday for a holiday party at the shooting site.

The attack unfolded at 11 a.m. on the campus of the Inland Regional Center, an agency that serves the developmentally disabled, in a building housing a conference center that was being used by the county department.

The Los Angeles Times, citing information from a senior federal official who was monitoring the case, reported that investigators believe one of the shooters left the party after getting into an argument and returned with one or two armed companions.

Burguan said he was aware someone left the party following a dispute but did not know whether that individual returned. The chief said he knew of no possible motive for the shooting spree.

Burguan said the manhunt initially led police to a home in the neighboring town of Redlands, and that police pursued a suspected getaway vehicle that was seen leaving that address back to San Bernardino, where the shootout ensued.

Bomb disposal technicians were examining a number of suspicious items left by the armed assailants at the Inland Regional Center, including one that was "believed to be a potentially explosive device."

David Bowdich, an assistant regional FBI director, said federal agents and local law enforcement were being cautious about entering the house in Redlands because of concerns about explosives that might have been left there.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Shooting rampage in California leaves 14 dead, 17 wounded

SAN BERNARDINO, California - Gunmen opened fire on a holiday party on Wednesday at a social services agency in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people and wounding 17 others, then fled the scene, triggering an intense manhunt and a shootout with police, authorities said.

One suspect was struck by gunfire and one officer was injured, San Bernardino police spokeswoman Sergeant Vicki Cervantes told reporters, adding that a second suspect might still be "outstanding."

She did not know the condition of the struck suspect but said the officer's injuries were not considered to be life-threatening.

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said in a televised news briefing earlier that as many as three suspects were believed to have made their getaway in a dark-colored sport utility vehicle.

A vehicle matching that description turned up at the shootout with police several hours later, Cervantes.

The police chief said 14 people were killed and 14 others wounded in the initial shooting spree, which unfolded at 11 a.m. on the campus of the Inland Regional Center, an agency that serves the developmentally disabled.

Cervantes later revised the toll of wounded to 17, not including the suspect and police officer who were shot later.

The shooting rampage in San Bernardino, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles, marked the deadliest U.S. gun violence since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, in which 27 people, including the gunman, were killed.

As the suspects fled, authorities ordered a security "lockdown" of all local schools, as well as city and county buildings, and area hospitals were placed on alert, Burguan said. Police searched door to door in the Redlands neighborhood a few miles from the site of the attack.

Burguan said he knew of no possible motive behind the attack.

"We have no information at this point that this is terrorist-related, in the traditional sense that people may be thinking," he added. "Obviously, at minimum, we have a domestic-type terrorist-type situation that occurred here."

He said the suspects were armed with rifles.

The Inland Regional Center is one of 21 facilities set up by the state and run under contract by non-profit organizations to serve people with developmental disabilities, said Nancy Lungren, spokeswoman for the California Department of Developmental Services.

Lavinia Johnson, executive director of the facility, told CNN the suspects opened fire inside a conference building in the complex where a holiday party was being held for county health department personnel.

The conference building sits adjacent to the two larger three-story buildings that house most of the agency's offices at the complex, Johnson said. Asked whether that meant that the Inland Regional Center staff and clients were safe, she said she understood they were being evacuated.

STRING OF SHOOTINGS

So far in 2015, there have been more than 350 shootings in which four or more people died, according to the crowd-sourced website shootingtracker.com, which keeps a running tally of mass shootings.

The shooting in California comes less than a week after a gunman killed three people and wounded nine in a shooting rampage at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In October, a gunman killed nine people at a college in Oregon, and in June, a white gunman killed nine black churchgoers in South Carolina.

Gun control advocates, including Democratic President Barack Obama, say easy access to firearms is a major factor in the shooting epidemic, while the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun advocates say the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees Americans the right to bear arms.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com