FBI may be able to unlock San Bernardino attacker's iPhone without Apple, Tuesday's hearing cancelled

Tuesday’s highly anticipated hearing in federal court in Riverside, in which a magistrate judge was to consider a request by Apple Inc. to vacate her prior order compelling the company to help the FBI hack into the iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, the gunman in the San Beardino terrorist attack, has been cancelled.

The cancellation came in an 11th-hour request Monday by the Justice Department, which stated in a court filing that it may have figured out a way to access the iPhone in question without Apple’s help.

“On Sunday, March 20, an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method of unlocking Farook’s iPhone,” according to the Justice Department’s filing in U.S. District Court in Riverside. “Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook’s iPhone. If the method is a viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple Inc.”

Federal prosecutors said in Monday’s filing they notified attoeys for Apple of the latest developments at 2:45 p.m. Monday, and counsel for Apple requested a telephonic conference with the court, which granted the govement’s request.

Attoey’s for Apple could not immediately be reached for comment.

Apple and the govement were expected to battle it out Tuesday in U.S. District Court over whether the tech giant must help the FBI hack into the work-issued iPhone of Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, fatally shot 14 people and wounded 22 others at the Inland Regional Center in San Beardino on Dec. 2.

But what was to be a potentially precedent-setting court case pitting the digital privacy rights of millions of people against national security interests appears to be fizzling.

The Justice Department said in Monday’s filing it can file a report with the court by April 5 on the status of its efforts to access the iPhone 5C in question.

In a conference call with reporters on Friday, an attoey for Apple criticized the Justice Department’s last-minute decision to push for cross-examination at the hearing, speculating the move showed the govement was not comfortable relying only on its legal arguments.

The lawyers for the giant tech, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was no indication from the govement that it wanted to call witnesses until late Wednesday night.

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In a statement, U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Melanie Newman says the govement is “cautiously optimistic” that the possible method will work.

Staff Writer Liset Marquez and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

More to come