Courts have previously ruled that computer code is free speech, and Apple executives told reporters on a conference call that the company views an order to rewrite its code as coercion to adopt the government’s views on privacy and security.
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The company’s argument that lawmakers failed to give prosecutors the power they are seeking reveals a gambit that the Supreme Court will side with it on privacy and block an attempt to make it a “hacking” department for the government.
Whether this additional support will help the FBI’s case against Apple is up for debate. The iPhone maker accused officials of trying to force Apple to create a “GovtOS”, or a government operating system that could easily be used on other phones.
APPLE has wanted to cancel FBI’s iPhone order from USA court.
“We do these because these are the right things to do”, Cook said Friday. Apple says that the government is asking it to create a software that doesn’t exist and it is an abuse of the law and violation of the company’s constitutional rights.
One obstacle the government is facing is that current law has not mandated companies like Apple to create a backdoor for law enforcement, Barnes told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” . If nobody can force anyone to write an article in an newspaper, then nobody can force Apple engineers to write code (which would help the Federal Bureau of Investigation break into the iPhone), the new logic behind Cupertino’s strategy is believed to be. Now, it appears that Facebook and Google parent company Alphabet are working with Microsoft on the brief as well, to be filed as a joint submission.
The FBI asked Apple not to limit the number of times a passcode can be tried in order to crack into the shooter’s phone February 16.
Apple pointedly noted the US government itself fell victim to hackers, when thieves stole the personal information of tens of millions of current and former federal workers and their family members from the US Office of Personnel Management.
In a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, FBI director James B. Comey contended that the real question that should be answered is about “who do we want to be as a country and how do we want to govern ourselves”.
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Its stance has been widely supported by the tech industry, including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter.
