“The tug-of-war between Apple Inc. and the FBI over encryption shows no signs of easing as the company reiterated its reasons on Friday for refusing to help investigators in Brooklyn,” Christie Smythe and Alex Webb report for Bloomberg. “After months of fighting, both sides are now deeply entrenched in their positions — arguments that have drawn other technology companies and government officials into an intensifying public debate over privacy.”
“In the Brooklyn case, Apple said a New York magistrate judge’s ruling was correct in determining that the company doesn’t have to help prosecutors crack into a drug dealer’s iPhone,” Smythe and Webb report. “‘The government’s failure to substantiate the need for Apple’s assistance, alone, provides more than sufficient grounds to deny the government’s application,’ Apple said in its filing.”
“The outcome of the case could influence what individuals can expect in terms of privacy, as well as how technology companies and law enforcement interact. The U.S. has a week to respond to the Friday filing, and on Tuesday Apple General Counsel Bruce Sewell is set to testify at a Congressional hearing on encryption issues along with representatives from the FBI and the New York police department,” Smythe and Webb report. “Apple argued Friday that the magistrate’s ruling should stand, saying it’s Congress’s responsibility to define what technology companies must do to aid investigators.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Let Congress, the peoples’ representatives, decide.
Oppose government overreach.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
SEE ALSO:
U.S. government to continue effort to force Apple to unlock iPhone in Brooklyn – April 8, 2016
U.S. government appeals Apple win in Brooklyn iPhone encryption battle – March 7, 2016
Can the FBI force a company to break into its own products? No, says U.S. Magistrate – March 2, 2016