Apple has filed a motion to dismiss the court order asking the company's help in unlocking the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters. However, the FBI Director, James Comey, said in a statement that the case is unlikely to be a trailblazer that could set a precedent for other cases contrary to what Apple claims.
Reuters reported that Comey said the case will be instructive for other courts, but noted that larger policy questions about reasonable law enforcement access to encrypted data will have to be resolved by the Congress. Comey has answered the statement of Apple CEO Tim Cook saying that if they comply, other companies could be forced to comply in precedent cases.
The statements come in the heels of the refusal of Apple to help the FBI in accessing the county-issued iPhone 5C used by Syed Rizwan Farook. He and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people and injured 22 last December during a holiday party, Times of India reported.
Despite the statements of Comey, Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the congressional panel, echoed the sentiments of Cook. He said he sees no limiting principle in the FBI vs. Apple case and that the precedent could be "there for many others." Other tech giant heads and technologists are rallying behind Cook saying that undermining encryption will expose data to hackers and jeopardize the integrity of the Internet.
However, the U.S. Justice Department, together with the FBI, contends that they are only asking Apple to disable the non-encrypted barriers for that one phone such as the feature that would delete data after ten consecutive incorrect password guesses. They believe that the phone contains valuable information that could lead them as to how and why the husband and wife attacked.
Apple still plans to argue that the court's order will violate the free speech rights, Tech Crunch reported. They also plan to improve iPhone and iCloud security so that they will no longer comply with government requests for information.
Comey and Apple General Counsel Bruce Sewell will be testifying on encryption at a March 1 Congressional hearing.
