The following made the rounds. Of course, most reported them irresponsibility and with the usual anti Jewish venom. Some salient points.
- This is not a letter from R’ Chaim Kanievsky
- It is from a Charedi organisation that sets itself up to “purify” communication. It has an agenda, and will never tell you about a Rav who has no problem with proper use of an iPhone
- There is a footnote which is their own fodder for the masses and can be misread to be the words of R’ Kanievsky.
- Even if this is true, R’ Kanievsky isn’t making decisions for you and I. A Rav paskens (if he did indeed pasken) for the people in front of him. Frankly, those people aren’t looking for a Psak at all. They are simply look for another bazooka to hold at people’s heads
- Anyone who extends the use of such a letter to the “conclusion” that wedding witnesses or mikvah ladies who use iPhones are Pasul even B’Dieved, doesn’t need a Rabbi; they need therapy
- There are plenty of Av Beis Din’s around the world who use smartphones.
- This has nothing to do with phones, it’s all about the improper use of the internet. Who has an argument with improper usage? My iPhone contains more Shiurim than I have time to listen to.
- Of course, toilet blogs like Scott Rosenberg’s blog and others, breed piranhas using such stories. They are irresponsible.
- Rabbi Kanievsky defers to Rav Shteinman anyway (the latter of whom isn’t a Posek of note, unless I’ve missed his Tshuvos)
- They neither live, nor know about my world, and simply don’t have the information required.
- I didn’t ask them for their opinion, and am not obliged to do anything with their letter.
- A Rosh Yeshiva is not a Posek anymore than a Posek is a Rosh Yeshiva
- There is no such thing as Daas Torah anyway. Speak to your Posek when you have a Shayla. That’s the way it was and ought to remain.
- End.
pitputim 
Isaac well said.
Extremism is a religious malady.
It all about emotional insecurity.
Days Torah is a falsehood as you pointed out.
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Letters of this caliber, propagated in the name of da’as Torah, are the end of the halachic process as we know it.
Unlike the responsa literature which was historically based on the principle of הורוני מהיכן דנתוני, the burden of substantiating a teshuva with references to Talmudic and Halachic sources – here we have none of it!
in the neo-halachic era, all we are left with is rumors and edict published by the purveyors of da’as Torah – a bnei brak avant garde that has trouble spelling the word בדיעבד
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I tried to find Da’as Tora in the Flyer but could not.
All the same; what is DA’AS TORA?
The duty of a Posek is, as you say, to interpret the various sources, to come to a conclusion and deliver his opinion. He has to have foundations and sources for his ruling. What is the purpose of that Da’as Tora today? What does it serve? Nowadays, Da’as Tora is a ruling that a Ba’al Halacha wants to implement working outside the sphere of Halachic procedure. Therefore a Da’at Tora is not Halacha and has no Halachic foundations, only the status, the standing and the charisma of the one that issued it.
Pitputim is quite right saying: “there is no such thing as Daas Torah anyway”.
כשהיה רבי עקיבא מסדר הלכות לתלמידים, אמר: כל מי ששמע טעם חברו יבא ויאמר (תוספתא זבים פ”א א)
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Re point 7 reading Rabbi Slifkin’s blog or for that matter Pitputim may constitute improper use of the internet according to some
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They would need to quote relevant parts of Shulchan Aruch in order for me to consider breeches.
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