The FBI and Apple standoff came to head today in front of the Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives. Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell spoke for Apple and their position, which thus far has been a steadfast resistance to the court order requesting Apple help the FBI unlock an iPhone connected to the December 2015 San Bernardino shooting.
Susan Landau, an encryption specialist and professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, also spoke in favor of Apple’s “[crucial] approach to securing phone data,” in her pre-submitted written testimony .
FBI Director James Comey and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. testified at the hearing as well, speaking against Apple’s reluctance to comply with the court order. According to Comey’s pre-submitted written testimony, “[The FBI is] not asking to expand the Government’s surveillance authority, but rather we are asking to ensure that we can continue to obtain electronic information and evidence pursuant to the legal authority that Congress has provided to us to keep America safe.”
Vance. has long been a proponent of using smartphone data in criminal cases as well, and even released a report November 2015 stating that the office was locked out of 111 encrypted Apple devices that could have been used for evidence gathering. This number has risen to 175, according to Vance.
Reuters is reporting that multiple representatives currently serving on the Judiciary Committee — from both sides of the aisle — are considering filing a legal brief that would “argue that the case should be decided by Congress and not the courts, five sources familiar with the matter said.”
This hearing, officially titled “ The Encryption Tightrope: Balancing Americans' Security and Privacy,” falls on the heels of a New York federal judge rejecting a motion based on the All Writs Act, the same one used to justify the court order relating to the San Bernardino iPhone. Similar to the other case, this motion sought to force Apple to help bypass the encryption on mobile devices that were recovered during legal physical searches, this time of a suspected drug trafficker.
The judge in the case rejected the motion due to how Department of Justice was attempting to transform the All Writs Act “from a limited gap-filling statute that ensures the smooth functioning of the judiciary itself into a mechanism for upending the separation of powers by delegating to the judiciary a legislative power bounded only by Congress's superior ability to prohibit or preempt.”
"Apple expressly agreed to assist the government in accessing the data on this iPhone — as it had many times before in similar circumstances — and only changed course when the government's application for assistance was made public by the court," the Department of Justice said in a statement about the New York case, according to NBC News. "This phone may contain evidence that will assist us in an active criminal investigation and we will continue to use the judicial system in our attempt to obtain it.”
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch echoed the sentiment, publicly stating that she was disappointed by the ruling at a technology conference, reports The Wall Street Journal.
For more background on the Apple Vs. FBI standoff, read this and this article, as previously reported on by iDigitalTimes.
