The U.S. government has argued that its recent legal attempt to force Apple Inc. to unlock an iPhone was an isolated case, but a new ACLU report reveals a sustained effort that also has included court orders targeting Google Inc. products.
“Even though the FBI no longer needs Apple’s help (in unlocking the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the December 2015 San Bernardino, California, terrorist attack), the FBI’s request was part of a sustained government effort to exercise novel law enforcement power,” the American Civil Liberties Union said.
The ACLU on Wednesday posted an interactive map on its Web site that shows the government has sought to compel Apple or Google to unlock a smartphone in dozens of cases since 2008, using the same 1789 All Writs Act it resorted to in the case of the San Bernardino iPhone.
“We uncovered 63 confirmed cases in which the government applied for an order under the All Writs Act to compel Apple or Google to provide assistance in accessing data stored on a mobile device,” the ACLU said.
Those cases mainly stemmed from drug-crime investigations.
The ACLU’s report comes just days after the Justice Department revealed that it no longer needs Apple’s help to unlock the mobile device used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the perpetrators of the Dec. 2, 2015, attack at a San Bernardino County public health department holiday party, because it had succeeding in accessing the phone’s data.
Fourteen people were killed and more than a score were seriously injured in the attack.
Police found the iPhone inside the vehicle that Farook, an American citizen, and Tashfeen Malik, his Pakistani wife – both alleged supporters of the Islamic State – were using to flee police when they were shot dead.
The FBI had asked Apple to create a backdoor to the iPhone used by Farook.
Apple refused, saying the software the government wanted it to create would be the “equivalent of a master key” and would “undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers – including tens of millions of American citizens – from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals.”
