We can’t yet predict which way the pendulum will go, but for one, Apple surely has the support of the masses in this fight between national security and personal privacy.
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Over the past year, law enforcement officials have spoken out about their inability to access encrypted data. Twitter Inc. also plans to back Apple in a motion, though it isn’t clear if it will sign on to the joint filing, another person familiar said.
A spokesman said: “The government’s request here creates an unprecedented burden on Apple and violates Apple’s First Amendment rights against compelled speech”.
Other technology companies – Microsoft, Google, Twitter and Facebook – also moved to throw their weight behind Apple in court.
An amicus brief, or “friend of court”, is filed so that a party who has not been solicited by other parties – Apple in this case – can offer information and assist in the case. Apple contends that the software the government wants it to build is a backdoor into the phone that would put many millions at risk.
“No court has ever authorised what the government now seeks, no law supports such unlimited and sweeping use of the judicial process, and the Constitution forbids it”, Apple said. Comey said he had been told by technology experts that the combination of the phone and operating system are “sufficiently unusual that it’s unlikely to be a trailblazer because of technology being the limiting principle”.
“Once the floodgates open, they can not be closed, and the device security that Apple has worked so tirelessly to achieve will be unwound without so much as a congressional vote”, the company’s lawyers wrote.
FBI Director James Comey appears at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on world wide threats on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016.
A person close to Apple said the company had started working on iPhone security improvements even before the December 2 attack, according to the Times.
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One overlooked fact in the battle between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Apple: there probably isn’t any useful information on Syed Farook’s government-issued phone. The All Writs Act, first enacted in 1789 and on which the government bases its entire case, “does not give the district court a roving commission” to conscript and commandeer Apple in this manner.
