The Office of the Inspector General has issued its report on the circumstances surrounding the FBI’s 2016 lawsuit attempting to force Apple to unlock an iPhone as part of a criminal investigation. While it stops short of saying the FBI was untruthful in its justification of going to court, the report is unsparing of the bureaucracy and clashing political motives that ultimately undermined that justification.
The official narrative, briefly summarized, is that the FBI wanted to get into a locked iPhone allegedly used in the San Bernardino bombing in late 2015. Then-director Comey explained on February 9 that the Bureau did not have the capability to unlock the phone, and that as Apple was refusing to help voluntarily, a lawsuit would be filed compelling it to assist.
But then, a month later, a miracle occurred: a third party had come forward with a working method to unlock the phone and the lawsuit would not be necessary after all.
Though this mooted the court proceedings, which were dropped, it only delayed the inevitable and escalating battle between tech and law enforcement — specifically the “going dark” problem of pervasive encryption. Privacy advocates saw the suit as a …read more
Source:: TechCrunch Gadgets
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