The federal government Monday dropped its bid to force Apple to help unlock an iPhone used by a shooter in last year’s terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, saying the FBI has succeeded in accessing the data on the device.
The development scuttles — for now — what was shaping up as a momentous court fight between the U.S. government and technology companies that are increasingly turning to encryption to secure phones and computers against the prying eyes of both hackers and law enforcement.
But the Justice Department refused late Monday to rule out taking other tech companies to court to force their aid in cracking encryption used by terrorists or criminals. That means this pause in the struggle between privacy and security is most likely just a ceasefire, advocates on both sides of the debate agreed.
“We’re gonna be right back here in six months or a year,” said Chris Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. “There will be a future phone that will be more secure, with a new version of [the phone’s operating system]. If the government cannot hack it they’ll go right back to the courts.”
Apple struck a somewhat victorious tone.
“From the beginning, we objected to the FBI’s demand that Apple build a backdoor into the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and would set a dangerous precedent,” Apple said in a statement. “This case should never have been brought.”
Not everyone saw it as a clear-cut victory.
Apple risked incurring the wrath of public opinion for impeding a terrorism investigation.
“Those worried about our privacy should stay wary,” said a statement from Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has faulted the government’s stance in the case. “Just because the government was able to get into this one phone does not mean that their quest for a secret key into our devices is over.”
Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, a major critic of tech companies that refuse to cooperate with law enforcement, agreed that the Apple-FBI skirmish was just one instance of a larger struggle that remains unresolved.
“This is just one example of what I fear we will face in the future many, many times,” the North Carolina Republican told CNN. Future cases will occur “not only in terrorism but in regular criminal prosecution, where we’ve got to get into electronic devices.”
“This issue has always been bigger than one court case,” said Rachel Cohen, press secretary for Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.), who has proposed legislation that would create a federal commission to find a solution to the encryption quandary.
Even so, this court case may not have turned out the way the government had anticipated last month, when it persuaded U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym to order Apple to build software to bypass a key security feature in the latest version of the iPhone’s operating system. By contesting the order — and saying it was standing up for its customers’ privacy — Apple risked incurring the wrath of public opinion for impeding a terrorism investigation.
“We all knew this was just a test case that looked good in the press,” cryptography expert Bruce Schneier told POLITICO. But instead, he maintained, the FBI lost the public relations battle — though the government will probably look for another test case if it can find one.
Apple’s stance had prompted Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump to call for a “boycott” of the company’s products. Still, he did not initially cease tweeting from his iPhone.
The DOJ official declined to identify the third party that helped the FBI unlock the iPhone
The two sides may not be entirely done with the current feud: The DOJ official said the government is not committing to telling Apple how it managed to crack the phone’s security protections, as Apple had requested. That means the FBI is leaving other iPhone users vulnerable to the same hack, Schneier argued.
“All those people are still vulnerable to whoever knows this technique — criminals, China, Russia, they don’t know,” he said.
The DOJ official declined to identify the third party that helped the FBI unlock the iPhone used by shooter Syed Farook, or to say if the technique might be useful in other legal cases. Federal prosecutors disclosed in a court filing Monday that the method had worked, so that the government “no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc.”
DOJ spokeswoman Melanie Newman said the information on Farook’s phone is now in the hands of the FBI. She did not say if it was useful to the probe related to December’s shooting rampage, which killed 14 people.
“The FBI is currently reviewing the information on the phone, consistent with standard investigatory procedures,” she said in a statement.
More sophisticated encryption technology on newer phones could make those devices harder to crack.
The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Eileen Decker, said prosecutors have made “a solemn commitment to the victims of the San Bernardino shooting — that we will not rest until we have fully pursued every investigative lead related to the vicious attack.”
“Although this step in the investigation is now complete, we will continue to explore every lead, and seek any appropriate legal process, to ensure our investigation collects all of the evidence related to this terrorist attack,” Decker said in a statement. “The San Bernardino victims deserve nothing less.”
It is unclear whether the method the FBI has discovered will moot a series of pending legal disputes over other iPhones in other parts of the country. In addition, more sophisticated encryption technology on newer phones could make those devices harder to crack and make inevitable some kind of future court showdown over the issue.
Newman hinted in her statement that the legal action launched to access Farook’s phone would likely not be the last such effort.
“It remains a priority for the government to ensure that law enforcement can obtain crucial digital information to protect national security and public safety, either with cooperation from relevant parties, or through the court system when cooperation fails,” she said. “We will continue to pursue all available options for this mission, including seeking the cooperation of manufacturers and relying upon the creativity of both the public and private sectors.”