There is probable cause that locked iPhone has attack evidence, US filing says
Justice officials on Thursday made the latest move in their high-stakes legal battle with Apple, pushing back against the technology company’s efforts to escape an order compelling it to help unlock a terrorist’s iPhone.
Looking to undermine the technology giant’s earlier legal maneuverings, lawyers for U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker filed court papers renewing their claim that Apple can be forced legally to write new software that would allow FBI agents to circumvent the phone’s security features.
In making their case, Justice officials rebuffed the company’s contention that the work its engineers would need to do to help crack into the iPhone would impose an illegal burden on the company.
“This burden, which is not unreasonable, is the direct result of Apple’s deliberate marketing decision to engineer its products so that the government cannot search them, even with a warrant,” according to the filing in U.S. District Court in Riverside.
Decker’s team said that a centuries-old law gives U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym the authority to make Apple cooperate, despite the company’s claims to the contrary. Prosecutors also attempted to knock down other arguments Apple has made, including that Pym’s order violates the company’s constitutional rights.
After weeks of jockeying with Apple in a back-and-forth that has played out in legal briefs and bids to sway public opinion, the filing Thursday was the government’s last chance to make its case before a showdown with Apple in front of Pym later this month.
The case has become a focal point in a broader dispute over how far technology companies must go in aiding law enforcement and whether a balance can be struck between law enforcement needs to access data on smartphones during criminal investigations and the privacy of technology customers worldwide.
Pym’s order granted a request from federal prosecutors to force Apple technicians to help FBI agents access the contents of an iPhone 5C that belonged to Syed Rizwan Farook, one of two assailants in the Dec. 2 attack in San Bernardino that killed 14 people.
Although FBI agents have pieced together much about Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, who joined him in the attack, they have expressed hope the confiscated phone contains information that would help answer outstanding questions, such as whether the killers had accomplices.
Fearing that Farook likely enabled a security feature on the phone that makes it inoperable after 10 failed attempts to enter the secret security code he selected, agents asked Apple for help in getting into the device. Until the correct security code is entered, the company’s encryption software keeps the contents of the phone scrambled.
Apple refused the FBI’s demands that its engineers write new software that would bypass the 10-attempt limit on the security code and other security measures built into the phone. With this done, agents then planned to use a computer program to churn through the thousands of possible pass codes until hitting upon the right one.
In seeking the order from Pym and again in their filing Thursday, prosecutors argued that the All Writs Act gives a judge the authority to compel Apple to write the new code. The act, which was first passed by Congress in 1789 and updated periodically, is a sweeping legal tool that allows judges to issue orders if other judicial avenues are unavailable.
Apple objected, arguing that the order was a stark abuse of the act and amounted to a power grab by federal authorities intent on codifying their authority to force technology companies to assist them in investigations.
This story was originally published March 10, 2016 at 10:06 AM with the headline "There is probable cause that locked iPhone has attack evidence, US filing says."