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A law enforcement official familiar with the situation said that the U.S. Justice Department will withdraw legal action seeking to force Apple to unlock an encrypted iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino, California shooting. Wochit
New York police officers stand outside the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue while monitoring a demonstration, Feb. 23, 2016, in New York.(Photo: Julie Jacobson, AP)
SAN FRANCISCO — Although the government officially withdrew from its battle against Apple Monday, many observers sense<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the tech privacy war is just heating up.
"This lawsuit may be over, but the Constitutional and privacy questions it raised are not,"<span style="color: Red;">*</span>said Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who had criticized the Justice Department's suit against Apple,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in a statement Monday.
The Justice Department withdrew its legal action to compel Apple to create a back door to a killer's iPhone after the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>method brought to the FBI earlier this month by an unidentified entity allowed<span style="color: Red;">*</span>investigators to crack the security function without erasing contents of the iPhone used by Syed Farook, who with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out the December mass shooting that left 14 dead.
But<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the FBI has about a dozen similar cases pending in which it wants access to smartphone information to assist with a case. While this particular showdown may be over, "there<span style="color: Red;">*</span>are other cases pending where law enforcement relies on the All Writs Act," an old law that can compel companies to help the government in pursuit of its duties,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>says<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Denelle Dixon-Thayer, Chief Legal and Business Officer at Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser.
"So this question is clearly not going away just because the government has withdrawn their request in this particular case," she says.
Mozilla and dozens of other tech companies that supported Apple with amicus briefs will be watching what happens next carefully. Privacy issues have both societal and financial implications. Given the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets, concerns loom about how rogue regimes could leverage back doors into tech products to go after detractors. Companies like Apple,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>whose brand identity is anchored to data security, could face declining sales if gadgets prove hackable.
All that is counterbalanced by the need for public security in an age when terrorists use encrypted smartphone communication to secretly plot devastating attacks such as the recent suicide missions in Brussels and Paris.
In its<span style="color: Red;">*</span>two-page filing in a California magistrate's court, the government noted that due to outside assistance it "no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc."<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Justice spokeswoman Melanie Newman said the FBI is reviewing the contents of the phone, "consistent with standard investigatory procedures.''
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Apple v FBI timeline
Newman added: "We will continue to pursue all available options for this mission, including seeking the cooperation of manufacturers and relying upon the creativity of both the public and private sectors."
Apple had no immediate comment.
Justice officials declined to comment on whether the technique used to unlock the phone would be applied to other encrypted devices. Authorities also refused comment on whether the method would be shared with Apple.
Tashfeen Malik, left, and Syed Farook are seen in this 2014 photo.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: AP)
Apple officials said on a call with reporters last week that if the iPhone in question was accessed, the company would want to know how so it can improve its encryption techniques. Declining to turn over such details to Apple engineers would "leave ordinary users at risk from malicious third parties who also may use the vulnerability," says Steve Crocker, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Monday's action concludes<span style="color: Red;">*</span>six weeks of building tensions between the government and the the Silicon Valley<span style="color: Red;">*</span>i-product giant. The FBI insisted for weeks that only Apple could crack the contents of Farook's iPhone. Apple said such an action amounted to a digital "backdoor" that could eventually undermine the privacy of consumers<span style="color: Red;">*</span>— an unwavering stance supported by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other tech giants.
The foes were poised to<span style="color: Red;">*</span><span style="color: Red;">*</span>face off in a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>court room in Riverside, Calif., last week before the Justice Department abruptly<span style="color: Red;">*</span>asked for<span style="color: Red;">*</span>— and was granted<span style="color: Red;">*</span>— a postponement.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has crusaded in a highly coordinated public campaign against the dangers of weakened security in digital devices. This month, Apple said the “Founding Fathers would be appalled” because the government’s order to unlock the iPhone was based on what it said was non-existent authority asserted by the DOJ.
Government law enforcement officials<span style="color: Red;">*</span>have denied charges the FBI<span style="color: Red;">*</span>wanted to establish<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a backdoor to Apple's encryption, and swatted away accusations that they were using the case to gain broader access to consumers' devices.
"The San Bernardino case was not about trying to send a message or set a precedent; it was and is about fully investigating a terrorist attack,'' FBI Director James Comey wrote in an editorial last week.
California U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker said federal authorities had pursued the litigation to “fulfill a solemn commitment to the victims of the San Bernardino shooting —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>that we will not rest until we have fully pursued every investigative lead related to the vicious attack.’’
Alex Abdo, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the government’s “unprecedented power-grab” a threat to everyone’s security and privacy.
“Unfortunately, (Monday's) news appears to be just a delay of an inevitable fight over whether the FBI can force Apple to undermine the security of its own products,” Abdo said in a statement late Monday. “We would all be more secure if the government ended this reckless effort.”
della Cava and Swartz reported from San Francisco, Johnson from Washington, D.C.
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