A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Apple to help authorities access the mobile devices used by the two perpetrators of December’s terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif.
In the ruling, U.S. Magistrate Sheri Pym ordered Apple to provide “reasonable technical assistance” to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in accessing iPhones used by Tashfeen Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook. The two were responsible for killing 14 people in the Dec. 2 attack. FBI officials have complained that they have been unable to access one of the Apple iPhones used by the couple because of the strong encryption the company employs.
In a Tuesday statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company opposed the ruling.
“We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack,” Cook said. “For years, cryptologists and national security experts have been warning against weakening encryption. Doing so would hurt only the well-meaning and law-abiding citizens who rely on companies like Apple to protect their data.”
At a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, FBI Director James Comey lamented the challenge posed by the issue.
“We still have one of those killer’s phones that we haven’t been able to open,” Comey told senators. “It’s been over two months now. We are still working on it.”
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Prior to San Bernardino, there had been just one occasion in which a terrorist was known to have used encrypted messaging. He was a perpetrator of a May 2015 attack in Garland, Texas, who exchanged 109 encrypted text messages with someone overseas before the attack.
