The Congress hammers both the FBI and Apple Inc. in a five-hour session on Tuesday over the encryption of a San Bernardino shooter's iPhone. For the last several weeks, the dispute between the two parties on harmonizing personal privacy with national security and public safety continues.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee grilled Apple General Counsel Bruce Sewell with questions on whether there is a setting or situation in which the company would cooperate with the government. Meanwhile, FBI Director James Comey was bombarded by the committee over the pitfalls of creating security vulnerabilities. According to CNET, the only thing that the two men could agree on was the need to keep discussing the issue.
On Tuesday, Director Comey told the congressional committee that a final court ruling forcing Apple to give the FBI data from an iPhone used by one of the gunmen in the San Bernardino incident would be 'potentially precedential' in other issues where FBI might ask cooperation from technology companies, as reported by Reuters.
Apple contested on February 16 when a federal court in California ordered them to write special software to unlock the iPhone 5c used by Rizwan Farook.
Comey and Sewell's statements gave light to some areas where the two parties fundamentally disagree. Comey said that the software created for Farook's iPhone would not work on other models, however, Sewell said that the software that Apple was being asked to create would work on any iPhone models.
Sewell underlined that their point is not about the San Bernardino cases, but about the safety and security of every iPhone that is in use today. The Guardian reported that Apple has in the past complied 70 requests under the All Writs Act, the law by which the Department of Justice is trying to compel to open Farook's iPhone 5c.
Apple and its legal team say the company complied with those requests because it could, but since 2014, when it improved the security on new models, it can no longer do the same thing.
