Los Angeles – Last year, The FBI filed a court order to unlock an iPhone belonging to a shooter involved in the San Bernardino, California terror attack but Apple decided to object the request.
Now, according to court records unsealed this week, the company has received at least fifteen court orders to assist in extracting data from an iPhone over the past five months.
Since Apple received a court’s request for assistance cracking a terrorist’s iPhone, the phone maker has argued the need for a balance between privacy and government access.
Also, the Tech giant has claimed that the government is not just looking one alleged terrorist’s phone, and the court record seems to prove so.
“We have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help, but now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create.” Apple CEO Tim Cook stated.
According to the court documents, since early October Apple has received orders to access data from an iPhone 3 to two iPhone 6 Plus models. In the documents, the Department of Justice says the list is correct.
Apple to argue free speech in FBI iPhone dispute
Last week, an LA District Court judge ruled that the company must assist the U.S. government in the search of an iPhone 5c owned by San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. Apple must respond to a court’s request within 2 days.
According to some reports, the company will reportedly argue in federal court that software code should be protected by the First Amendment as free speech.
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a prominent First Amendment lawyer who is a lead attorney for Apple in the case, told The Associated Press that Apple will also argue that this is a question for Congress, and should not be determined by the courts. Apple is expected to formally file its legal objections to the government’s demand by week’s end.
On the other hand, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Wednesday that judges at all levels have the power to ask companies to assist and the Congress does not need to get involved as Apple wants.
According to reports, the FBI is relying on a law called the All Writs Act from 1789 that’s been used to compel companies to assist law enforcement in investigations, but apparently Apple also plans to argue that that law has never been used to require a company to write software.
Source: CNN