Donald Trump said Wednesday that Apple should cooperate more with the government’s effort to break into a device used by one of the terrorists involved with the December attack in San Bernardino, Calif.
“Apple, this is one case, this is a case that certainly we should be able to get into the phone … And we should find out what happened, why it happened and maybe there’s other people involved and we have to do that,” Trump said during an appearance on “Fox and Friends.”
“To think that Apple won’t allow us to get into her cellphone … Who do they think they are?” he added. “These are two people radicalized who were given a wedding party by the people they killed! There’s something going on. We have to be very careful, we have to be very vigilant.”
On Tuesday, Apple said in a statement that it would seek to challenge a court order demanding that the company assist the Federal Bureau of Investigation in breaking into a device used by one of the killers.
“The implications of the government’s demands are chilling,” Apple said in the statement. “If the government can [do this] to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data.”
“The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge,” Apple warned.
Last week, FBI Director James Comey told a Senate panel that his agency had been unable to access the contents of an iPhone used by the perpetrators due to its level of encryption. Though it is not necessarily germane to preventing attacks in the future, the contents still serve as a topic of interest to officials.
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“While we believe the FBI’s intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products,” Apple wrote. “And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.”
