Ride the Lightning

Government Seeks Order Requiring Apple to Assist With Encrypted Phone

December 3, 2014

Ars Technica has reported that newly discovered court documents from two federal criminal cases in New and California that remain otherwise sealed indicate that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is invoking the 18th century All Writs Act to get cellphone makers to assist in criminal investigations.

The All Writs Act is a federal law that simply allows courts to issue a writ, or order, compelling a person or company to do something. One of the phones in question is known to be an iPhone 5S.

Two federal judges agree that the phone manufacturer in each case—one of which remains sealed, one of which is definitively Apple—should provide aid to the government by providing access to unencrypted data or giving the government encrypted data. There's a wonderful rub here from a privacy standpoint.

Ars is publishing the documents in the California case for the first time in which a federal judge in Oakland specifically notes that "Apple is not required to attempt to decrypt, or otherwise enable law enforcement’s attempts to access any encrypted data."

The two orders were both handed down on October 31, 2014, about six weeks after Apple announced that it would be expanding encryption under iOS 8, which aims to render such a data handover to law enforcement useless. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that DOJ officials told Apple that it was "marketing to criminals" and that "a child will die" because of Apple’s security design choices.

Thus far, the DOJ's hyperbole has fallen on deaf ears – let's hope that 18th century law will not govern 21st century privacy.

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