|
 In response, a senior Apple executive, speaking with reporters on
condition of anonymity, characterized the Justice Department's
filing as an effort to argue its case in the media before the
company has a chance to respond.
The back and forth escalated a showdown between the Obama
administration and Silicon Valley over security and privacy that
ignited earlier this week.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is seeking the tech company's
help to access shooter Syed Rizwan Farook's phone by disabling some
of its passcode protections. The company so far has pushed back and
on Thursday won three extra days to respond to the order.
Another senior Apple executive said Congress is the right place for
a debate over encryption, not a courtroom.
The executive said Apple was stunned that such a legal request had
come from the U.S. government rather than a country with weaker
traditions of protecting privacy and civil liberties.
The motion to compel Apple to comply did not carry specific
penalties for the company, and the Justice Department declined to
comment on what recourse it was willing to seek.
In the order, prosecutors acknowledged that the latest filing was
"not legally necessary" since Apple had not yet responded to the
initial order.
The clash between Apple and the Justice Department has driven
straight to the heart of a long-running debate over how much law
enforcement and intelligence officials should be able to monitor
digital communications.
A federal court hearing in California has been scheduled for March
22 in the case, according to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S.
Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.
The Justice Department said its Friday motion was a response to
Apple CEO Tim Cook's public statement Wednesday, which included a
refusal to "hack our own users and undermine decades of security
advancements that protect our customers."
"Rather than assist the effort to fully investigate a deadly
terrorist attack ... Apple has responded by publicly repudiating
that order," prosecutors wrote in the Friday filing.
"Apple’s current refusal to comply with the court’s order, despite
the technical feasibility of doing so, instead appears to be based
on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing
strategy,” prosecutors said.
ID CHANGE POSES HURDLE
The two senior Apple executives said the company had worked hard to
help investigators and tried multiple avenues including sending
engineers with FBI agents to a WiFi network that would recognize the
phone and begin an automatic backup if that had been enabled.
They criticized government officials who reset the Apple
identification associated with the phone, which closed off the
possibility of recovering information from it through that automatic
cloud backup.
San Bernardino County reset the password on the iCloud account at
the request of the FBI, said county spokesman David Wert.
[to top of second column] |
The government first disclosed the identification change in a
footnote to its filing Friday. The Apple executives said that the
reset occurred before Apple was consulted. The Justice Department
declined to comment on that contention.
The two sides have been on a collision course since Apple said it
would offer strong encryption by default on its devices in 2014, a
move prompted in part by the surveillance revelations from former
National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
But the Justice Department struggled to find a compelling case where
encryption proved to be an insurmountable hurdle for its
investigators until the Dec. 2 shooting rampage by Farook and his
wife in San Bernardino, California, which killed 14. Authorities
believe the couple was inspired by the Islamic State.
Some technology experts and privacy advocates backing Apple suggest
Farook's work phone likely contains little data of value. They have
accused the Justice Department of choreographing the case to achieve
a broader goal of gaining support for legislation or a legal
precedent that would force companies to crack their encryption for
investigators.
The case has quickly become a topic in the U.S. presidential race.
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump on Friday called for a "boycott"
against Apple until the company complied with the court order.
The two Apple executives said they felt in good company, noting that
Trump has faulted many other groups and individuals.
The debate will also play out on Capitol Hill. Bipartisan leaders of
the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee late Friday invited
Apple's Cook and FBI Director James Comey to testify at an upcoming
hearing on encryption, though a date was not set.
The House Judiciary Committee is also planning an encryption hearing
for March and has invited Apple to attend, according to a
congressional source.
(This version of the story was corrected to remove reference to
Google encryption in 18th paragraph)
(Reporting by Julia Edwards and Dustin Volz; Additional reporting by
Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles, David Ingram in Washington, Dan
Levine, Julia Love and Joseph Menn in San Francisco; Editing by Bill
Rigby, Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)
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