Tonight is the night we will find out who won this battle. The Monday ruling could have a huge effect on the decision.
The on-going battle between two giants the FBI and Apple Inc. has gone to another level now. All eyes are glued on who would win this battle. It all started when the FBI asked the tech giant to decrypt an iPhone that was found on one of the suspects of the San Bernardino attack in December. However, this saga has come to point where we can say that the ball might be in Apple’s court.
There had been an unrelated but similar case earlier and on Monday a federal judge in Brooklyn stated that the iPhone maker cannot be forced to by-pass the security passcode on the device. This case involves a meth dealer’s iPhone 5s by the name of Jun Feng. There was a raid at the meth dealer’s house during which the DEA – Drugs Enforcement Administration discovered a phone; while questioning the suspect, he state that he did not remember the password due to which the DEA had to turn to the FBI for assistance.
In the following months of the raid, the FBI constantly nagged the iPhone maker to unlock the device or create a backdoor for the specific device so they are able to access the data of the phone however Apple Inc. did not comply with the request of the Feds. However the authorities did not stop asking the technology company to do so despite that fact that the suspect was pleaded guilty. This makes us think that the FBI just wants the company to create a backdoor through which they are able to gain access to millions of user’s data.
The authorities even played the “All Writs Act” card to their advantage however it failed to work for them as the Federal Magistrate Judge James Orenstein stated that it lacked legal footing. They relentlessly came up with arguments for the company to comply with their request. The matter still stands that if the company even decided to create such a software it would give access of data to potentially everyone because who is to say that they the hackers will not gain access to the software.
The ruling that was passed on Monday worked more in the tech giant’s favor than in the favor of the FBI as the company and a number of other technology companies have argued at numerous occasions that they cannot be forced to do something that they do not want to do especially when it comes to the violation of its customer’s privacy. The iPhone manufacturer has made its stance very clearly with everyone publicly, despite the fact that it understands the importance of national security the organization does not want to jeopardize the privacy of its users and hence has decline to unlock the phone.
However the technology giant wants to put this case behind it now due to which it has appeal to the Congress and not the court so that a final decision can be made on the matter. Yet to see what the answer will be tonight.
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