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Report: Apple to argue that encryption battle with FBI should be decided by Congress

According to a report from the Associated Press, Apple plans to file legal papers in which it will argue that its fight with the FBI of decrypting an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino gunmen should be settled by Congress. This report follows Apple CEO Tim Cook’s letter to employees in which he stated that the government should withdraw its demands because they are invalid under the All Writs Act from 1789.

Theodore Boutrous Jr., a lead lawyer for Apple, reportedly previewed the company’s legal plan and arguments to the Associated Press, much of which Cook hinted at in his open-letter to customers and subsequent letter to employees. Apple will argue that the fight should be decided by Congress, where it spent $5 billion lobbying in 2015.

Boutrous echoed Tim Cook’s sentiments while speaking to the AP, explaining that the law does not give the government the authority to force companies to create a backdoor to their devices:

“The government is really seeking to push the courts to do what they haven’t been able to persuade Congress to do,” Boutrous said in an AP interview. “That’s to give it more broad, sweeping authority to help the Department of Justice hack into devices, to have a backdoor into devices, and the law simply does not provide that authority.”

Yesterday it was revealed that in addition to the San Bernardino case, the government is seeking data from at least 12 other iPhones involved in criminal activities. Apple will argue against all of these cases with this battle, the report claims.

Apple’s battle with the FBI over national security versus user privacy began last week and has since become one of the biggest and most complex stories in tech and politics. You can view all of our extensive coverage at the links below:

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Comments

  1. xp84 - 8 years ago

    If it were me I would want to avoid any chance of decisions affecting me being made or influenced by 435 of the worst people in the country in a gerrymandered House which perverts the will of the people at every opportunity.

    But that’s just me. Good luck! 🙃

  2. theoceandweller - 8 years ago

    Let the congress to decide in favor of the FBI or Apple? /: Is this for real? Who is the government trying to fool? Might as well let Isis decide.

  3. The source article you link to says Apple spent five million dollars lobbying Congress last year, not five billion.

  4. Waynehead (@ctt1wbw) - 8 years ago

    This should be decided by Apple and Apple alone. The encryption keys are Apple’s intellectual property, not the government’s.

  5. I believe they will fight this based on the previously decided supreme court case which found computer code is speech, protected by the First Amendment. The First Amendment also gives one the protection of saying nothing; as in speech cannot be compelled by the government. They want Apple to provide the FBI with a signed version of firmware to load on to the phone in question, which will let them then allow a custom version of the iOS signed by Apple to be loaded on to the subject device. This custom firmware and iOS will overwrite the 10 trys and your out-your phone gets wiped, and replace it with one that will allow multiple brute force attacks until they hack into the device. This particular firmware and subset of iOS code that overrides the currently installed version are all pieces of software code that have not been written by Apple or its employees. It follows then that the First Amendment protections enjoyed by Apple mean that they cannot be compelled to write new code to make these things happen.

  6. John Smith - 8 years ago

    The arrogance of these global mega-corporations is staggering.

    Imagine some ordinary guy running a small business doing this.

    “I’ll only comply with a court order if congress passes a law telling me to do it”

    He’d be in jail by the end of the day.

    I guess the rules are different when you are running a corporation which has more money than most countries.

  7. Daniel Beehn - 8 years ago

    No, no, no, no, NO! What kind of company does Apple think it is? You don’t “let Congress” decide something like that—especially *after* you’ve spent $5 billion lobbying the politicians. That is about as un-objective as you can get.

    I think all that money they have in the bank is going to their head.

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

Tips, questions, typos to chance@9to5mac.com