Apple balks at hacking iPhone of a terrorist
Ruling to help FBI sets up legal clash over privacy rights
WASHINGTON — A U.S. magistrate’s order for Apple Inc. to help the FBI hack into an iPhone used by the gunman in the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., sets up a legal fight with implications for ordinary consumers and digital privacy.
The clash brings to a head a long-simmering debate between technology companies insistent on protecting digital privacy and law enforcement agencies concerned about becoming unable to recover evidence or eavesdrop on the communications of terrorists or criminals.
On Wednesday, the White House began disputing the contention by Apple CEO Tim Cook that the Obama administration is seeking to force the software company to build a “backdoor” to bypass digital locks protecting consumer information on Apple’s popular iPhones. The early arguments set the stage for what will likely be a protracted policy and public relations fight in the courts, on Capitol Hill, on the Internet and elsewhere.
“They are not asking Apple to redesign its product or to create a new backdoor to one of their products,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “They’re simply asking for something that would have an impact on this one device.”
Within hours of the judge’s order Tuesday telling Apple to aid the FBI with special software in the case, Cook promised a court challenge. He said the software the FBI would need to unlock the gunman’s work issued iPhone 5C would be “too dangerous to create” and called it “undeniably” a backdoor.
Cook compared it to a masterkey, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks, and said therewas no way to keep the technique secret once it’s developed.
“Once the information is known, or a way to bypass the code is revealed, the encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge,” Cook said.
At the center of the debate are the private data carried on nearly 900 million iPhones sold worldwide: photographs, videos, chat messages, health records and more.
The ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym represents a significant victory for the Justice Department, which last year decided not to pursue a legislative fix to address encryption but has now scored a win instead in the courts.
Pym, a former federal prosecutor, was persuaded that agents investigating the worst terror attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, had been hobbled by their inability to unlock the countyowned phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people Dec. 2.
The dispute places Apple, one of the world’s most respected companies, on the side of protecting the digital privacy of a terrorist.
“We have no sympathy for terrorists,” Cook said.