FBI Officials Were Angry That An iPhone Hack Blocked Them From Getting Court To Force Apple To Break Encryption

FBI Officials Were Angry That An iPhone Hack Blocked Them From Getting Court To Force Apple To Break Encryption

The FBI, lying? Say it isn't so. "As you probably recall, last year the FBI tried to force a court to effectively create a backdoor for encrypted iPhones, using the high profile San Bernardino shootings as the wedge. It seemed quite obvious with how the whole thing played out that the FBI didn't really need to get into Syed Farook's work iPhone, but that it hoped leverage the high profile nature of the case and the "fear, uncertainty and doubt" around a "terrorist" attack to finally get a court to force Apple to do this. A new report reveals that the FBI was very much focused on using this case to force the issue to the point that top officials were angry that a vendor figured out another way into the iPhone, and stopped the court proceedings. Again: if the real goal (as stated publicly by the FBI at the time) was to find a way into this phone for important reasons, then you'd think the FBI would be excited when they found a way in, rather than pissed that a court wasn't needed to force a backdoor. But that's not what happened. A recently-released Inspector General's report [PDF] shows the FBI jumped the gun in the San Bernardino case. The FBI insisted it had no other options when it asked a judge to grant its All Writs Act request to compel Apple to break into the shooter's recovered iPhone. But this report shows these claims -- one repeated by the DOJ in its legal filings and by James Comey in testimony to Congress -- weren't actually true."