Apple says US can’t force it to unlock terrorist’s iPhone
Tim Cook has called it nothing less than a threat to civil liberties, the digital privacy of millions and even children's safety.
Now, six days after the federal investigators threw down a gauntlet to Silicon Valley, Cook's lawyers have weighed in, offering cool-headed legal arguments against having Apple Inc. unlock the iPhone used by one of the attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, in December.
Apple's response, which it said it filed Thursday, is the company's first formal step in a case that seems destined to reach the US Supreme Court. The filing lays out a simple legal argument: that compelling Apple to write new software to break open the smartphone would represent an "undue burden" for the company to help FBI get inside the phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who with his wife killed 14 people on 2 December.
The government demands that Apple create a back door to defeat the encryption on the iPhone, making its users' most confidential and personal information vulnerable to hackers, identity thieves, hostile foreign agents, and unwarranted government surveillance, according to the filing.
Apple's response to the 16 February order to help the investiga- tors also said the US doesn't have the authority to force the company to help FBI. The magistrate's decision that it must provide "reasonable technical assistance" was premised on an unprecedented expansion of the All Writs Act, a 1789 law that compels third parties to take "non-burdensome" steps to help law enforcement carry out search warrants in circumstances not covered by other statutes, Apple has argued.
The All Writs Act has never been used-and should not be used-to force a company to produce software code that could be used as a "master key" to bypass a mobile phone's security features, Apple said in the court filing. A hearing is scheduled for 22 March in Riverside, California.
The filing comes after the Apple chief executive publicly blasted the US demand as being "bad for America" in a nationally televised interview with ABC on Wednesday. And in fiercely worded posts, Cook accused the government of threatening civil liberties, of looking for an end-run around encryption that could expose Americans to privacy breaches, of a "chilling" and undemocratic overreach.
The standoff, over whether the US can require Apple to write code that would override a key security feature of the iOS operating system, is on one level just about what law enforcement can demand of one company in its investigation into the motives of Syed Rizwan Farook, who with his wife attacked a holiday party. The couple died in a shoot-out with police. But the larger battle pits the public interest in privacy against its interest in protection from terrorists and other criminals, and highlights how advances in consumer technology, including encryption of personal data, may have eclipsed US laws.
The morning after Cook warned on ABC's World News that the debate should be before Congress rather than in the courts, FBI director James Comey told the House Intelligence Committee that the question will ultimately be up to the Supreme Court as neither side is likely to back down.