Apple: NY case shows FBI was never interested in evidence on San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone

SAN BERNARDINO >> The U.S. Department of Justice’s attempt to pressure Apple into unlocking an iPhone once used by one of the two people believed responsible for the Dec. 2 terrorist attack in San Beardino was all about setting a precedent, not getting evidence — and the department’s actions in New York prove it, Apple Inc. officials said Friday.

Earlier in the day, the Department of Justice filed a declaration that it will not modify its request to get Apple’s help in a Brooklyn case.

In February, U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein ruled that Apple caot be forced to assist govement investigators against its will and said Congress ought to be the ones to take up the issue. The Brooklyn phone in question is an older model iPhone used by a drug dealer who pleaded guilty in October. As in the aborted attempt with the phone in the San Beardino case, the federal govement is relying on the 1789 All Writs Act, which gives the courts the power to order third parties to technically assist authorities.

The Department of Justice appealed the ruling in March, and Friday, the department reaffirmed that it’s staying the course with the Brooklyn phone. In a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Margo Brodie, prosecutors said they still need Apple to unlock the iPhone 5S to aid in the case.

The letter comes almost two weeks after the department declared that it didn’t need Apple’s help in the San Beardino case after all, having found another way into an iPhone 5C issued to Syed Rizwan Farook by the San Beardino County Department of Public Health, which employed him as a health inspector.

Apple attoeys, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were “disappointed” in the department’s decision to go forward with the case in New York, in a phone call with reporters.

And, they said, the DOJ’s decision to continue pressuring Apple to help out with what they described as a “routine law enforcement matter” leading up to a May sentencing hearing, underscores that the federal govement mostly wanted to set a precedent in San Beardino so that technology providers could be forced to unlock encrypted devices.

Although the department got into Farook’s phone with a tool provided by a third-party source rumored to be an Israeli cybersecurity firm, FBI director James Comey has said the tool won’t work on more recent versions of Apple’s iPhone, which include encryption technology in their hardware.

Apple attoeys said on Friday that they do not intend to sue to get the Department of Justice to say how they unlocked Farook’s phone, as they’re confident that the technique will have a “short shelf-life,” as older iPhones are replaced with more sophisticated models.

Advertisement

Federal officials have not said what, if anything, they ended up getting off of Farook’s work phone. He and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, destroyed two personal phones before the Dec. 2 attack at the Inland Regional Center, in which they killed 14 and wounded 22.