In recent developments following the San Bernardino shootings,in which the shooter, Syed Farook’s iPhone was captured,Apple has refused to help the FBI in unlocking it,filing a motion in court ,claiming that by aiding the FBI it breaks the Apple’s policy of freedom of speech (it’s Constitutional First Amendment).
Twitter ,Google ,Facebook and Microsoft have openly expressed their support to the Apple decision and are expected to file similar briefs next week.
Apple claims that by handing the FBI the software whereby enabling it to avoid the passcode retry limit of the iOS ,would compromise iOS ,and thereby allowing the government to force all other technical companies as well to create software whereby a “Backdoor” is created ,allowing the government to eavesdrop on the public ‘ private and personal conversations in the future.By creating this so called “GovtOS” the privacy and security of the public will be compromised as this ruling would allow more iPhones to be unlocked at the will of the FBI.
Further discussions on the case between President Obama and Apple’s CEO Tim Cook are set to take place soon.
In further developments,due to the refusal to Comply to the request by the FBI to unlock the iPhone 5c ,belonging to the San Bernardino shooter ,the Maricopa County Attorney, Bill Montgomery ,recently gave a statement saying that “Apple’s refusal to cooperate with a legitimate law enforcement investigation to unlock a used by terrorists puts Apple on the side of terrorists instead of on the side of public safety,” further adding that “Positioning their refusal to cooperate as having anything to do with privacy interests is a corporate PR stunt and ignores the 4th Amendment protections afforded by our Constitution “ and therefore announced that the Maricopa County ,Arizona Attorney’s office has refused to allow any of it’s employees to buy any new iPhone in the future,however this may have little impact as out of a total of 564 smartphones used by personnel in the attorney office 366 are iPhones.
Source: MacNews