The Associated Press, Gannett Co., and Vice Media LLC have filed a suit against the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to gather details how agents hacked into the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters.
The Justice Department fought with Apple for over a month, trying to convince the company to allow the government into Syed Farook’s iPhone after he and his wife Tashfeen Malik, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, killed 14 people in San Bernardino, CA, in December 2015. The FBI took Farrok’s phone as evidence, but couldn’t open it due to a passcode. Apple refused to help, saying it would risk privacy of other customers.
Then somehow, call it a miracle, the FBI managed to crack into the iPhone all by themselves!
Now the three organizations want to know how the FBI hacked the phone, who did it, and how much it cost. Since the FBI refused to supply information requested in their previous FOIA request, the organizations have now filed another suit:
“Understanding the amount that the FBI deemed appropriate to spend on the tool, as well as the identity and reputation of the vendor it did business with, is essential for the public to provide effective oversight of government functions and help guard against potential improprieties,” said the suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
The battle between the government and Apple began a huge “debate about the extent of the government’s power to pry into digital communications.” One judge told “Apple to write new software for the FBI that would allow agents to bypass a security feature that would lock the phone after 10 incorrect attempts to guess its passcode.”
Apple refused to help and even told officials that our Founding Fathers “would be appalled” of their request. CEO Tim Cook said the demand from the judge is “an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers.”
But whoa! Somehow the FBI managed to crack the code all by themselves. As Kemberlee pointed out, maybe the agents “didn’t need to start a privacy flame war with one of the countries largest electronic purveyors after all.”
Turns out a “third party” went to the FBI to unlock the phone for the agents. Of course the government did not reveal any information on this party or what they found on the phone.
FBI Director James Comey has tried to alleviate fears by stating that whatever they did to the phone only “works on a narrow slice of phones.” He said it would “probably” only work on the iPhone 5C with iOS 9, which is what Farook had.
Uh huh. Yeah.
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