Apple victory in iPhone 5s unlock court case

Judge James Orenstein applied the ruling to a NY drug case in which the U.S. government requested for Apple to be forced to help extract data from a locked iPhone. He concluded it did not. The same testimony will be presented to a House Judiciary Committee hearing on 1 March.

According to CNNMoney, there are at least 13 instances across the U.S., but Apple says doing the federal government’s bidding would undermine the security features in hundreds of millions of iPhones around the world.

“It’s directly on point”, a senior Apple executive said of Monday’s ruling.

COURT has sided with Apple in the iPhone passcode unlock case, and presumably made Donald Trump blow his top.

Government lawyers are expected to appeal the decision, which came in the case involving Jun Feng, a Queens, N.Y. defendant who pleaded guilty in October to a methamphetamine conspiracy. To that effect, access to the iPhone was sought from Apple but has been ruled against.

Justice officials have tried to force Apple into creating a one-off software program that would allow investigators limitless attempts to crack the phone’s password.

Orenstein warned that amid the blossoming of computer power, a government theory that a licensing agreement compels manufacturers “to help it surveil the products’ users will result in a virtually limitless expansion of the government’s legal authority to surreptitiously intrude on personal privacy”.

Orenstein stated that the All Writs Act finds no application in the case, and does not necessarily resolve the issue and other similar cases.

In deciding whether to grant the request, the judge said he considered three main things: the closeness of Apple’s relationship to the underlying criminal conduct and government investigation; the burden the requested order would impose on Apple; and the necessity of imposing such a burden on Apple. The court ruled Apple must provide “reasonable technical assistance” to investigators seeking data on Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5c.

“Those involved say the swell of support is unparalleled, especially for a case at the magistrate judge level – the lowest level of the federal court system”.

“This is a very important decision”, Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor, said of the Brooklyn ruling.

Judge Orenstein devoted much of his ruling to prosecutors’ argument that because Congress largely has been silent on the issue of what companies, particularly technology firms, may be required to do to assist investigations, the All Writs Act authorizes them to compel companies to assist investigations.

The New York ruling isn’t binding on the magistrate in the San Bernardino case.