Summary: A NY drug case has been denied the request to have Apple hack an iPhone confiscated as evidence. What’s more, he said, it could fall into the hands of malicious actors who could use it to crack other phones. He included his doubts on whether the statute would be considered constitutional if adopted.
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Tuesday’s testimony from FBI Director James Comey and remarks before the same US House Judiciary Committee by Sewell, brought to Congress a public fight between Apple and the government over the duelling interests of privacy and security that has so far only been heard in the courts.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee grilled Apple General Counsel Bruce Sewell with questions on whether there is a setting or situation in which the company would cooperate with the government. The case is similar to the California case in that the government was looking to force Apple to unlock a phone in an ongoing criminal case.
Which would seem to bolster Apple’s argument.
The Justice Department has stated they plan to ask for a review on the decision. The legal back and forth between Orenstein, the Justice Department and Apple began in October, when federal prosecutors applied for a court order to force Apple to unlock an iPhone 5s seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration in a 2014 drug case, according to court documents. Issa told FBI Director James Comey that the FBI has laboratories that are the best in the world and asked him if he was testifying that contracts employed by FBI could not crack the password without the involvement of Apple. The judge said law enforcement was inappropriately trying to use powers that it had not been given by the US Congress.
That’s for a judge to decide in a court hearing scheduled for later this month.
The ruling came out days after a California judge ordered Apple to create a special software for breaking the encryption of code in an iPhone which belonged to a San Bernardino terrorist.
Sewell says the USA government has spent millions on supporting strong encryption used by activists and journalists, many in countries with fewer free-speech rights.
Judge Orenstein, in his 50-page administering on Monday, focused on a 1789 statute called the “All Writs Act” that underlies numerous administration demands for extracting information from tech organizations.
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“Whether you’re talking about the power grid, the water supply, whatever, we’re connected in disastrously insecure ways and the best way to get in is log-in credentials”, Landau said.
