Industry supports Apple against FBI

Executives believe a ‘bad ruling here will empower all kinds of requests’

WASHINGTON: Fewer than three weeks before Apple and the US justice department bring their fight to a California courtroom, a wave of major technology firms and outside groups have linked arms and said they are united against the US federal government’s demands.

Despite uncertainty among some in the tech industry over whether this was the fight to pick, a slew of big names had either signed on or announced plans to do so on Thursday, many of them worrying about what impact the case could have on privacy.

Relatives of some of the people killed in the December 2 attack in San Bernardino, California, however, filed their own brief on Thursday, siding with the FBI and arguing that accessing the phone may help answer questions about the attack.

“What if it leads to an unknown terrorist cell?” Mark Sandefur, whose son was killed in the attack, wrote in a letter to Apple chief executive Tim Cook that accompanied the filing.

“What if others are attacked and you and I did nothing to prevent it?”

Tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft are among those signing on to court briefs backing Apple, according to Mozilla, which said it was joining those firms in a friend-of-the-court brief. Twitter filed a joint brief on Thursday with eBay, Reddit and more than a dozen other tech companies arguing the government’s request is “unbound by any legal limits” and “would set a dangerous precedent”.

Yahoo planned to file an amicus brief on Thursday and the company “is proud to support Apple in this case”, Ron Bell, the company’s general counsel, said.

The sheer level of support showed how pivotal the debate over an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers has become in Silicon Valley, as it has blossomed into a public fight over balancing privacy and security.

After FBI agents investigating the San Bernardino attack – which killed 14 people and injured 22 others – determined they could not access the locked phone, authorities sought and obtained a magistrate judge’s order demanding Apple’s help. The order directed Apple to write software disabling a feature that erases the phone’s data after 10 incorrect attempts at trying a password.

Apple has fought that order through public statements, court filings and, this week, a formal objection filed in court.

The US Justice Department has said its demands in this case are specific, limited and could offer information for a terrorism investigation. Apple has argued the case has much broader implications, both for its products and the tech industry as a whole.

On March 22, both sides will continue the fight during oral arguments in the court case. But with that date looming, groups faced a deadline for filing amicus briefs adding their voices to the court record.

Some of the firms that ultimately decided to file briefs did so despite reservations by some of their executives, according to tech industry lawyers.

These executives thought Apple had picked a legal battle that could backfire and hurt the industry, said several lawyers who have spoken to the executives but asked to remain anonymous to discuss these talks.

Still, these executives ultimately thought that “a bad ruling here will empower law enforcement to make all kinds of requests,” said one lawyer.

A lawyer for Apple said he has not heard any qualms from the firms he had dealt with that are filing the briefs. “All are 100 percent supportive,” he said. – Washington Post