Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym of the Federal District Court for the District of Central California ordered Apple to bypass security functions on an iPhone 5c used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who was killed by the police along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, after they attacked Mr. Farook’s co-workers at a holiday gathering. Judge Pym ordered Apple to build special software that would essentially act as a skeleton key capable of unlocking the phone.The judge gave Apple five days to object to its ruling. However, Tim Cook responded to the court’s ruling in a matter of hours by refusing to comply. “We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a letter to customers on the Apple website. But while “up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them,” the U.S. government has now “asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.” Cook continued: Cook wrote that the FBI’s demand should spark a “public discussion.” You can read his entire conversation at Apple’s site. We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack. For years, cryptologists and national security experts have been warning against weakening encryption. Doing so would hurt only the well-meaning and law-abiding citizens who rely on companies like Apple to protect their data. Criminals and bad actors will still encrypt, using tools that are readily available to them. Rather than asking for legislative action through Congress, the FBI is proposing an unprecedented use of the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion of its authority. [Apple]
