The FBI’s efforts to force Apple
Lawmakers divided over questions on iPhone encryption
to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, Calif., killers has shifted to the halls of Congress.
WASHINGTON — The heated dispute over the FBI effort to force Apple to help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, Calif., killers moved Tuesday to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers appear divided on the issue.
In separate appearances, FBI Director James Comey and Apple’s general counsel, Bruce Sewell, argued each side of the debate at a crowded House Judiciary Committee hearing on the balance between privacy and national security.
Comey warned that public safety may suffer if Apple and other companies are allowed to defy courtordered warrants to assist the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in cracking encryption on smartphones and other devices.
“If there are warrant-proof spaces in American life, ... what are the consequences of that?” Comey asked.
Rejecting Apple’s charge that the FBI is overreaching, Comey insisted the California case is focused on getting Apple to write software so the FBI can unlock a single encrypted iPhone in a terrorism investigation, not all smartphones.
But the tech giant’s law--
yer said forcing Apple to weaken encryption would set a “dangerous precedent” and allow courts across the country to open a “back door” on devices used by most Americans, and make them vulnerable to hackers and cyberthieves.
“This is not about the San Bernardino case,” he argued. “This is about the safety and security of every iPhone in use today.”
The hearing convened a day after Apple won a federal court ruling in New York, a decision that could affect the San Bernardino case. U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein said he did not have the authority to order Apple to disable security on an iPhone used by a drug dealer who had pleaded guilty in a methamphetamine distribution case.
Across the country in
California, Apple is fighting U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym’s order to write software so FBI technicians can unlock Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5c.
Farook and his wife killed 14 people on Dec. 2 at the Inland Regional Center before they were killed in a shootout with police. The debate has created unusual alliances in Congress, as libertarian Republicans line up with civil liberties Democrats to support Apple’s stand on privacy. It also has aligned national security hawks in both parties.
Sen. Richard Burr, RN.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., are drafting a bill that would penalize companies that don’t comply with court orders to help authorities crack encrypted devices.