The Department of Justice is moving forward with a court case which could compel Apple to help them unlock a seized iPhone. If Apple is forced to write software to get around its security, it would be creating a back door that criminals, hackers and spies could exploit, he said.
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This order for Apple to assist law enforcement was made in February, but it came to light today after the ACLU filed a motion to make this information public.
On December 2, Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out a shooting that left 14 people dead.
Apple has already helped open an estimated 70 phones for the government, but is resisting doing so for encrypted technology in about a dozen legal cases. A lawyer for Apple said the company was disappointed but not surprised by the government’s decision to press ahead with the Brooklyn case.
In 2014, the company introduced iOS 8, which was using a new encryption that prevented an agent from the government or Apple itself, from accessing the data stored on its smartphone.
Apple has been fighting the orders in court, arguing that the government’s demands violate the company’s constitutional rights, harm the Apple brand and threaten the trust of its customers to protect their privacy. And now with the Feng case, it is hoping to use the situation of a phone that Apple acknowledges it can break into but is refusing to do so to bolster its interpretation of the All Writs Act.
“Litigation between the government and Apple over the San Bernardino phone has ended, because the government has purchased, from a private party, a way to get into that phone, 5C, running iOS 9”, the director said.
Federal law enforcement officials declined to say whether they were looking into having third parties unlock the phone in the NY case. At the time, Apple not only complied with an iPhone unlocking request, it helped prosecutors draft the court order requiring it to do so. That ended a standoff in California between Apple and the Justice Department there.
They’re pushing Apple to unlock an iPhone “as part of a NY drug investigation”, The Wall Street Journal reported.
To bolster its case, the government is pointing to numerous instances in which Apple has helped.
The hacking tool used in the San Bernardino case was tested to determine if it would work on other phone models, the official said. The company plans to seek assurance that the government exhausted all options for accessing the contents of the phone in the drug case.
The company said it will be asking the government why it doesn’t believe it can access the phone, and whether or not it has sought the help from external forensic firms.
Which is why the DoJ is appealing the moot NY case.
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But in fall a year ago U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein invited Apple to appeal the order. The attorney also offered his suspicions that the hack wouldn’t work on newer iPhones, given that Apple is always working towards improving it’s security, which is something the Federal Bureau of Investigation themselves said earlier yesterday.
