The government wrote that they had limited alternatives to obtaining Apple’s help and the Brooklyn case involved a phone with a different operating system as to that which was used in the San Bernardino case.
Advertisement
As in the San Bernardino case, where the US Justice Department sought access to a phone used by a gunman who fatally shot 14 people in December, Apple objected to the Boston order, an employee briefed on the matter said.
Earlier this week, FBI Director James Comey said in a speech that the newly-discovered secret method for opening that phone, a model 5c, doesn’t work on newer versions of iPhones, such as the 5s or 6 models.
Apple will file it’s response next week, but an attorney representing the company told reporters it was disappointed with the FBI’s attempts to set a precedent (via CNET).
Back on February 29, Judge James Ornstein denied the FBI’s request, stating, “More specifically, the established rules for interpreting a statute’s text constrain me to reject the government’s interpretation that the AWA empowers a court to grant any relief not outright prohibited by law”.
In San Bernardino, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wanted Apple to create new software to allow them to bypass security measures on Syed Farook’s iPhone. The justice department has demanded Apple’s help in unlocking an iPhone in a drug related case in Brooklyn.
After U.S. investigators managed to crack the California phone, a Brooklyn judge will “likely be skeptical that they don’t have a way to break into this phone either”, he said in a phone interview.
Obviously, Apple refuses to comply with FBI’s request and reiterates that the company expects the San Bernardino hack to leak very soon, making it much easier for its own engineers to patch the flaw and deliver an update to all iPhones. The government dropped its legal action in the San Bernardino case after announcing it unlocked the iPhone with the help of an “outside party”.
Since Feng’s iPhone 5s is running iOS 7, the information on it isn’t encrypted by default, and Apple does have a method to extract that data without needing to know the locked phone’s passcode. “We have a tool that works on a narrow slice of phones”, Comey said at an encryption and surveillance conference at Kenyon University in OH late on Wednesday.
Apple did not immediately return calls for comment.
While the case in NY was overshadowed by the California situation that dominated headlines in recent weeks, it has taken on a particular importance amid an ongoing debate over balancing privacy and security in the digital age.
Advertisement
A USA judge has ordered Apple to help law enforcement officials unlock an iPhone in a gang case -another battle between the government and the technology giant over encryption.
