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January 8, 2020 01:00 pm

FBI Asks Apple To Help Unlock Two iPhones

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The encryption debate between Apple and the F.B.I. might have found its new test case. The F.B.I. said on Tuesday that it had asked Apple for the data on two iPhones that belonged to the gunman in the shooting last month at a naval base in Pensacola, Fla., possibly setting up another showdown over law enforcement's access to smartphones. Dana Boente, the F.B.I.'s general counsel, said in a letter to Apple that federal investigators could not gain access to the iPhones because they were locked and encrypted and their owner, Second Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani of the Saudi Royal Air Force, is dead. The F.B.I. has a search warrant for the devices and is seeking Apple's assistance executing it, the people said. Apple said in a statement that it had given the F.B.I. all the data "in our possession" related to the Pensacola case when it was asked a month ago. "We will continue to support them with the data we have available," the company said. Apple regularly complies with court orders to turn over information it has on its servers, such as iCloud data, but it has long argued that it does not have access to material stored only on a locked, encrypted iPhone. Before sending the letter, the F.B.I. checked with other government agencies and its national security allies to see if they had a way into the devices -- but they did not, according to one of the people familiar with the investigation. "The official said the F.B.I. was not asking Apple to create a so-called backdoor or technological solution to get past its encryption that must be shared with the government," the report adds. "Instead, the government is seeking the data that is on the two phones, the official said." "Apple has argued in the past that obtaining such data would require it to build a backdoor, which it said would set a dangerous precedent for user privacy and cybersecurity." Apple did not comment on the request.

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