In his testimony, Mr. Comey struck a conciliatory tone, saying he believes in encryption and privacy, and at no point did he criticize Apple or Silicon Valley.
Advertisement
“It’s really about who do we want to be as a country and how do we want to govern ourselves”, Comey told the House Intelligence Committee, defending the government’s demand for the tech company to help access the device. Comey says the issues raised in the Justice Department’s dispute with Appl…
Apple has not received such universal praise on Capitol Hill.
The company also criticized the Justice Department for publicizing the order, which would normally have been filed under seal. The company accused the government of seeking “dangerous power” through the courts and of trampling on its constitutional rights.
The Justice Department is proposing an unprecedented and “boundless interpretation” of the law that, if left unchecked, could bring disastrous repercussions, the company warned in a memo submitted to Magistrate Sheri Pym in California that aggressively challenges policy justifications put forward by the Obama administration.
“This is not a case about one isolated iPhone”, Apple’s legal team wrote.
The locked iPhone 5C in question was a work phone linked to Syed Farook, who with his wife Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in a December 2 terror attack in San Bernardino, California, which was at least partly inspired by the Islamic State group. Such a change would allow investigators to hack into the phone.
The judge allowed Apple to respond in the brief on yesterday and now a hearing is scheduled for next month.
“This case is about the future”, he said. Countering the claim, Apple said to do so would create a “dangerous precedent” that could be applied to situations with other phones and court demands, both in the USA and overseas. Some family members and survivors of the attack have said they’ll be filing a brief in support of the government’s position.
Apple filed its formal objection in the case Thursday. It was not meant to be used by “judges to compel innocent third parties to provide decryption services to the FBI”, Apple’s legal team wrote. Whether the All Writs Act gives the U.S. the authority, once it obtains a warrant, to compel the company to write new software to unlock a mobile phone goes beyond the scope of that 2014 ruling.
So, doesn’t Apple want to help nab a terrorist by opening a “single” requested iPhone?
Apple boss Tim Cook argues that this would “make hundreds of millions of customers vulnerable around the world”, because if government investigators can get in the back door, so can hackers. It argued that such a precedent could lead to many other potentially more invasive requests.
Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon are all said to be working on a joint brief aimed at showing their support for Apple.
Advertisement
The case will be heard in court on 22 March.
