Apple has filed a motion to back out of a court order to hack into the iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
The motion reads:
This is not a case about one isolated iPhone. Rather, this case is about the Department of Justice and the FBI seeking through the courts a dangerous power that Congress and the American people have withheld: the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe.
In a call with the press on Thursday, an Apple executive called the version of iOS that the FBI needs to access the phone "GovtOS." Apple argues that law-enforcement agencies would be able to use GovtOS to gain access to "hundreds" of iPhones it has from suspected criminals. For example, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has said that his office has 175 iPhones it wants Apple to help it unlock.
Apple says that it wants to argue against the court order based on the First and Fifth amendments.
The company is arguing that its First Amendment right to free speech is at stake. Apple wrote the code that encrypts the iPhone's software, which represents its corporate values for customer privacy. Forcing Apple to do the opposite would be a violation of its right to free speech and expression, the company's executives said.
Apple's Fifth Amendment argument is that the FBI's request denies its right to liberty and property by "undermining the security mechanisms of its own products."
The business also says that this is the first time the government has asked a company to intentionally weaken security systems, and that doing so would create a dangerous precedent moving forward.
On the press call on Thursday, an Apple executive who requested anonymity echoed the company's previous comments that the FBI is asking for unprecedented access to its software. The executives said that they've been unable to find any prior precedent or analogous situation to what the FBI is demanding. This would be the first time such a request would be fulfilled under the All Writs Act, a law that dates back to 1789.
The motion reads:
If this order is permitted to stand, it will only be a matter of days before some other prosecutor, in some other important case, before some other judge, seeks a similar order using this case as precedent. Once the floodgates open, they cannot be closed, and the device security that Apple has worked so tirelessly to achieve will be unwound without so much as a congressional vote.
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Even FBI Director James Comey admitted on Thursday during a congressional hearing that the case would establish a precedent. After previously saying that the FBI wanted only special access to Syed Farook's iPhone in the San Bernardino case, Comey admitted that a ruling in the FBI's favor "will be instructive for other courts" and "guide how other courts handle similar requests."
Apple is also concerned that if it complies with the FBI's request, then it could create an opening for more intrusive requests from the government, like access to the iPhone's camera and microphone.
According to the motion:
For example, if Apple can be forced to write code, in this case to bypass security features and create new accessibility, what is to stop the government from demanding that Apple write code to turn on the microphone in aid of government surveillance, activate the video camera, surreptitiously record conversations, or turn on location services to track the phone's user? Nothing.
Apple says that it would also need to create a forensic lab at its Cupertino, California, headquarters for the government to use GovtOS, which the company believes is a burden it shouldn't be forced to undergo. For example, Apple's motion says that it would have to dedicate several employees to work on the project, which could take up to four weeks.
In short, Apple is trying to shift the case away from the courts and into political dialogue.
Apple wants the conversation about whether tech companies like itself should build backdoors into their own encryption to go before Congress.
"If anything, the question whether companies like Apple should be compelled to create a backdoor to their own operating systems to assist law enforcement is a political question, not a legal one," the motion says.
Apple's head of legal, Bruce Sewell, will testify next week at a congressional hearing about encryption. Tim Cook recently said that he plans to meet with President Barack Obama to discuss encryption and hopes that the debate will be brought before Congress.
Here's Apple's fact sheet for the motion, written in plain language:
