Apple’s fight with U.S. government enters new round in court
Apple Inc.’s fight over privacy with the U.S. isn’t over yet, even after the government dropped a demand for the company’s help in accessing a California shooter’s iPhone because someone else found a way to crack it.
The U.S. said it’ll keep fighting to get the company’s help in getting data off a phone in Brooklyn, New York, that belonged to a drug dealer because Apple provided assistance in accessing such devices earlier. In a court filing Friday, the government said it’s going ahead with an appeal of a judge’s order denying its request for Apple’s help.
The battle between the world’s most valuable tech company and the U.S. over encryption and data privacy has sparked a national debate, with dozens of companies and organizations siding with Apple, while law enforcement has generally taken the government’s side.
APPEAL UNCERTAIN
It’s far from certain that the Justice Department will prevail on appeal, said Timothy Edgar, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies and Public Affairs at Brown University. 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.
The U.S. said on March 28 that it had successfully decrypted an iPhone used by a man who with his wife carried out a December attack in San Bernardino in which 14 people were killed. That ended a standoff between Apple and the Justice Department there.
An Apple attorney said the company doesn’t know how the government broke into the California phone. The hack will have a short shelf life because Apple will improve its security features, the attorney told reporters on a conference call. The attorney spoke on the condition of not being named.
PRECEDENT- SETTING
Apple said the FBI is attempting to set a precedent to require it and other companies to work on the government’s behalf. The company questioned whether the government has exhausted all the methods available to obtain the data on the phone.
The two phones were different models and the tool which the FBI used to break into the California phone likely wouldn’t work on the iPhone 5S at the centre of the Brooklyn case.
Since the Brooklyn handset runs an earlier version of Apple’s mobile operating system — iOS 7 — it may be easier to hack the phone’s software.
PRIVACY RIGHTS
In the pivotal clash over privacy rights, the Brooklyn judge called a U.S. government argument that the company is required to co-operate under a 1789 statute called the All Writs Act “obnoxious to the law.”
After helping prosecutors unlock at least 70 iPhones, Apple last year stopped co-operating and said the company would no longer serve as the government’s helper. Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in February that U.S. demands for iPhone access are a chilling attack on privacy.
The government disagreed, saying Apple is more concerned about its marketing and brand identity than about the safety of the public.
The government has sought Apple’s help because self-destruct features on newer iPhones wipe out data if prosecutors try “brute force” techniques to hack in.