A couple of months ago, Apple was hit with unlock requests to not only unlock the iPhone belonging to the dead San Bernardino terrorist, but they were also hit with a separate request in NY to unlock the iPhone belonging to a suspect in a drug case.
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The judge’s order Monday was a terse legalistic phrase. Unconfirmed reports claim it was the suspect in the case, Jun Feng, who pleaded guilty past year to drug-related charges.
It may be recalled that prosecutors have been confronting a ruling issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein on February 29 wherein stating that he was not authorized to force Apple to unlock the security of an iPhone that was seized during a drug probe, the Daily Mail reported. The California-based tech giant’s legal team also contended the government misinterpreted provisions of the All Writs Act, the 1789 statute that Department of Justice lawyers cited as the legal basis for forcing Apple’s assistance.
According to the Reuter’s report, the US Justice Department on Friday dropped its effort to force Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to help unlock an iPhone in a drug case in NY after someone provided authorities the passcode to access the device.The Brooklyn case became the chief point of conflict between Washington and Silicon Valley after a more high- profile fight over the phone of a San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist ended last month when investigators found a way to crack into that device without Apple’s help. The FBI won its order, but Apple asked the court to reverse the ruling saying the government didn’t have the authority to force companies to circumvent their own security features, and that doing so would set a precedent where other companies would be forced to do the same. “Accordingly, the government no longer needs Apple’s assistance to unlock the iPhone, and withdraws its application”.
Meanwhile, FBI Director James Comey recently said that the technique used to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone 5c would not be effective for other iPhone models, including the iPhone 5s which was seized from one Jun Feng in the Brooklyn drug case.
One of the core arguments of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in their case against Apple was that the company was uniquely able to grant the access the Federal Bureau of Investigation needed.
Even more baffling is that Feng’s phone is an iPhone 4s running iOS 7, an older version with far less protections than the iOS 9 iPhone 5c in the San Bernardino case. Counsel for Apple called the case “unprecedented” after the DOJ filed a motion to compel Apple to unlock the encrypted iPhone.
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That being said it looks like they have since changed their mind.
