FBI General Counsel James Baker declined to say if information extracted from an iPhone used in the San Bernardino December shooting was pertinent or useful, according to the Wall Street Journal. Baker spoke publicly to a group of privacy professionals in Washington, according to The New York Times.
9to5Mac quotes the Wall Street Journal article, which is behind a paywall, as saying, “‘We’re now doing an analysis of that data, as we would in any other type of criminal terrorism investigation,’ Mr. Baker said, adding: 'That means we would follow logical leads.’ But because the agency has only had access to the data for a short time, he said 'it’s simply too early’ to say whether anything found on the phone has been valuable to investigators . . . The FBI . . . won’t decide whether to talk about what it has found until after that examination is complete.”
The FBI has had access to the iPhone used in the shooting for over a week now, having dropped their court case against Apple after finding a third party to unlock the iPhone.
The FBI had originally petitioned the Department of Justice to force Apple’s hand in the matter, citing concerns of national security and requesting that Apple provide a master key or method of unlocking all iPhones.
Apple has encrypted iOS devices, including the iPhone and iPad, since iOS 8. The issue became a national topic of conversation in the United States, with everyone from John Oliver to Bill Gates weighing in.
