In the ongoing battle over unlocking a terrorist’s Apple iPhone, a Tuesday (March 22) hearing —in which a federal court would have heard the Justice Department’s request to have the consumer electronics giant unlock a phone — has been postponed because the government has said it may have another way to grab a view of the phone’s contents.
The postponement came in the wake of a Sunday filing with the United States District Court in Riverside, California, in which the government said an “outside party” showed the FBI there was a possible alternate method to unlock the phone that was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who killed 14 people, with help from his wife, in California last December.
If the method works, then it would eliminate the need for Apple’s assistance in unlocking the phone. The Wall Street Journal said the postponement is the newest development in a “closely watched case over the balance between privacy and national security in the digital age.” The government originally argued that it indeed needed Apple’s assistance in unlocking the phone, with the new acknowledgement that the “outside party” is not from within governmental intelligence agencies.
But, said WSJ, the acknowledgement of the possibility of outside help diminishes the contention that Apple should have to come to the department’s aid and may, in fact, signal that the government is backing off this claim.
Apple’s argument has centered on the fact that creating a new operating system that would allow for data unlocking on that particular phone would lead to less security for all the other iPhones out there.
The government has until the beginning of next month, or April 5, to file a status report that is tied to the case.
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