Some criminals have switched to new iPhones as their “device of choice” to commit wrongdoing due to strong encryption Apple has placed on its products, three law enforcement groups said in a court filing.
The groups on Thursday told a judge overseeing Apple’s battle with the US Department of Justice that, among other things, they were aware of “numerous instances” in which criminals who previously used so-called throwaway “burner phones” had switched to iPhones.
They did not list a specific instance.
The brief by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and two others also cited a jailhouse telephone call intercepted by New York authorities last year, in which an inmate called Apple’s encrypted operating system a “gift from God.”
The government obtained a court order last month requiring Apple to write new software to disable passcode protection and allow access to an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the killings in San Bernardino, California, in December last year.
POLARIZING REQUEST
Apple asked that the order be vacated, arguing such a move would set a dangerous precedent and threaten personal information security.
Tech industry leaders including Google, Facebook and Microsoft and more than two dozen other companies filed legal briefs on Thursday supporting Apple.
The Department of Justice received support from law enforcement groups and six relatives of San Bernardino victims.
The law enforcement groups said in their brief that Apple’s stance poses a grave threat to investigations across the country.
The US FBI says Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were inspired by Muslim militants when they shot and killed 14 people on Dec. 2 at a holiday party. The couple later died in a shoot-out with police and the FBI said it wants to read the data on Farook’s work telephone to investigate any links with militant groups.
THREE ATTACKERS?
In a filing on Thursday, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office said at least two 911 calls from the time of the shooting reported three assailants, not two.
Even though those reports were “not corroborated,” if in fact there were three attackers it would be important to crack the iPhone “to identify as of yet unknown co-conspirators,” the district attorney’s filing said.
Apple has said it respects the FBI and has cooperated by turning over data in its possession.
The latest request is different, because it requires the company to crack a smartphone with a software tool that does not currently exist, Apple said.
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