Facebook takes Apple’s side in privacy fight with Federal Bureau of Investigation

From Google Inc.to Facebook Inc., the industry’s biggest names rallied around Apple Inc.’s chief executive officer after he vowed to resist a court order demanding it help unlock the iPhone of a shooter in a terrorist attack.

Lawmakers on the Judiciary committee are divided over Apple’s stance, reflecting a lack of consensus that has thwarted congressional efforts in recent years to strike a balance between privacy rights and law enforcement.

Prosecutors said Cook’s statements have been misleading and if the company complied, the government would still need a warrant to access a device and Apple would keep custody of the software. He said that building a “backdoor”, a vulnerability in the iPhone’s software, would allow the government-or cybercriminals-future opportunities to hack phones. In a statement issued Friday, the DoJ urged a federal judge to order Apple’s immediate compliance.

Apple’s resistance is “based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy”, prosecutors wrote.

Apple says they have been assisting the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but that the latest request goes too far. In their filing Friday, prosecutors explained that investigators would be willing to work remotely to test passcodes, while Apple retained both possession of the phone and the technology itself.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, meanwhile, called for an Apple boycott yesterday at an event in SC. “If the precedent is this, that they deliver the phone to Apple and Apple does it, I think that’s a pretty good precedent that can’t be done en masse on the next thousand iPhones”.

Two other personal phones were found crushed beyond investigative value in the trash behind the couple’s home.