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I'm worried that the FBI could respond to the latter with "Well, that just means that you're not allowed to build something like that." That, personally, is fa

I'm worried that the FBI could respond to the latter with "Well, that just means that you're not allowed to build something like that." That, personally, is far more terrifying than Apple giving the FBI one phone. Because it's a very short road from "You're not allowed to build completely unbreakable security" to "You're not allowed to build anything that could hinder FBI investigation efforts and must build a backdoor." The Supreme Court is going to have to hear this stuff, and I'm doubtful that the rulings are going to be friendly.

plorg 11y ago
Maybe there's a different piece of legal justification elsewhere, but in this particular case it rests on the "All Writs" act. That act does not say that you cannot create a system that the government can't get into. It says that courts are allowed to compel you to help the government in a legal investigation. The extent to which that act allows a judge to compel Apple to assist is what is in question. IANAL, but I suspect it would be a much larger jump to try to use this statute to ban the creation of an encryption system (as opposed to helping to defeat one). If they wanted to do that they would almost certainly have to go through congress or find a different statute.