Apple vows to fight court order to help FBI unlock California shooter’s iPhone

Tech giant Apple says it will oppose a court ruling ordering it help the FBI break into a phone recovered from one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple must provide “reasonable technical assistance” to investigators seeking to unlock the data on an iPhone 5C that had been owned by Syed Rizwan Farook, Judge Sheri Pym of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles said in a ruling. But Apple boss Tim Cook said he would fight the order which sets a “dangerous precedent”, he said. "We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.“

Apple has the exclusive technical means which would assist the government in completing its search, but has declined to provide that assistance voluntarily.

Prosecutors in court

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles on Tuesday requested the court order to compel Apple to assist the investigation into the Dec. 2 shooting rampage by Farook and his wife that killed 14 people and injured 22 others. The two were killed in a shootout with police. Prosecutors said Apple could still help investigators by disabling "non-encrypted barriers that Apple has coded into its operating system”. That assistance includes disabling the phone’s auto-erase function, which activates after 10 consecutive unsuccessful passcode attempts and assisting investigators to submit passcode guesses electronically.

The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers.

Tim Cook

Apple FBI