“Encryption tools are widely used around the world, including by human rights defenders, civil society, journalists, whistle-blowers and political dissidents facing persecution and harassment, ” Hussein said.
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As Howard Mintz reported Thursday, many tech companies filed briefs in support of Apple, which is refusing to comply with an order to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.
Relatives of five people who were killed, along with one survivor of the December 2 attack, also filed a brief saying the FBI’s request is lawful and calling Apple’s concerns “speculative”. Take San Bernardino County DA Michael Ramos, whose office wrote in a court filing obtained by Ars Technica that Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone “may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino’s infrastructure”. The brief explains that the court’s order would violate Apple’s First Amendment rights because the right to free speech prohibits the government from ordering those who do not wish to speak to speak.
“Although the reports of three individuals were not corroborated, and may ultimately be incorrect, the fact remains that the information contained exclusively on the seized iPhone could provide evidence to identify, as of yet, unknown co-conspirators who would be prosecuted by the district attorney for multiple murders and attempted murders in San Bernardino County”, the brief states.
Credit: TerryJohnston / photo on flickrTwitter, Reddit, AirBnB, eBay, Google, AT&T, Facebook, Kickstarter, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft, Mozilla, Cisco Systems, Snapchat, Pinterest, and others: It’s a veritable checklist of every single major tech company, social media, and online service that works directly with consumers.
The victims’ families argued that Apple’s arguments were misplaced because the government had a valid warrant, and “one does not enjoy the privacy to commit a crime”. “If it were forced to give that back door to the USA government, the Chinese government is not going to believe that argument anymore”, Newman said.
Jonathan Zdziarski, a prominent iPhone forensics expert, rebuked Ramos’s contentions outright, suggesting that Ramos is looking for a “magical unicorn”, one you might expect from “24” or “Homeland”, but one that has no basis in reality. According to Reuters, Intel also filed a brief of its own in support of Apple.
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Apple says unlocking Farook’s phone would make all other iPhones more vulnerable to future attacks. Both Farook and his wife died in the shootout with police after the attacks.
