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. For the reasons set forth above, I conclude that
it does not. The government's motion is denied.
It doesn't answer the question that was on my mind ("Can the FBI force Apple to write and cryptographically sign a less-secure version of their operating system?"), but it's nice to know that the AWA doesn't grant them that capability.
I've seen a lot of doom and gloom about the current state of the US government all around the internet, but I have to say that this kind of thing helps me remain optimistic. A judge is free to make his or her decision without fear of coercion or some fanciful Tom Clancy-esque story unfolding as some people seem to believe things to work. The system may be flawed, but it's not broken yet.
I would feel a lot more confident about the US's overall state of corruption if the defendant in this case weren't the largest capitalized company in the world.
Would this case have come to the same result (which is likely to be appealed) if it was say UnluckySmallCo. instead of Apple that was on the receiving end of the government's pressure?
Let's look at it from a different angle: What if you were a GNU/Linux distro maintainer and nine defendants had used your OS instead of Windows? Could you be forced to help the FBI?
This is one of those times I really wish we had a functioning legislative branch. They could write and pass a law describing companies' obligations and law enforcement's powers when dealing with strong encryption on smartphones. Then people who disagreed could take it to the courts, and a Supreme Court with an odd number of justices could decide whether said law was constitutional.
Unfortunately we do not live in that world, so we get to creatively interpret centuries-old laws written by people who could not have imagined encrypted smartphones. And that interpretation may end up at an evenly-divided Supreme Court.
In the event of a tie, the the lower court is the tie-breaker. Having an even number of justices doesn't break the court, and even if it did, it'd be another long while before this case could be appealed that high anyway.
Even if we're to believe the rhetoric that the Senate isn't going to appoint any candidate, nobody's even been nominated yet, so the idea that the whole system is broken may be true, but not for the reasons speculated.
An even number of justices does not necessarily mean a deadlocked Supreme Court. Most cases are not decided 5-4 (though it may be true that the most controversial cases are more likely to be decided that way).
I agree, especially in this case. Since it isn't a straightforward Democrats vs. Republicans issue, Kennedy or Roberts might go either way. Still, with our useless Congress, there won't be any new law, and even if there were, it could be struck down by a Circuit Court decision "approved" by a deadlocked Supreme Court. Ugh.
The FBI needs some legal basis for forcing Apple to develop and cryptographically sign a less-secure version of their operating system. This order, assuming it's not overturned by a higher court on appeal, removes one legal avenue the FBI had.
I haven't seen any other avenues. (In fact, Apple cited laws on the books that expressly prohibit the FBI from making this type of request if it concerns a phone manufacturer.)
