US Magistrate Judge James Orenstein ruled that the US Department of Justice cannot force Apple to give the FBI access to locked iPhone data. Justice was trying to use a 227-year-old law to force Apple to create specialized software that does not now exist to help the FBI get into a cell phone which is linked to the investigation into the San Bernardino terrorist incident.
The ruling deals a blow to the government which is arguing that public safety takes priority over privacy. Orenstein ridiculed some of the government’s arguments, pointing out that lawyers were stretching an old law “to produce impermissibly absurd results.”
“Ultimately, the question to be answered in this matter, and in others like it across the country, is not whether the government should be able to force Apple to help it unlock a specific device; it is instead whether the All Writs Act resolves that issue and many others like it yet to come,” Orenstein wrote. “I conclude that it does not.”
The All Writs Act the judge is referring to was written in 1789, has been revived in recent years to help the federal government get access to information locked in cell phones.
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