If you are referring to the law invoked in the Apple case (the All Writs Act), a company unable to comply does not face legal consequences. From Wikipedia: "In

If you are referring to the law invoked in the Apple case (the All Writs Act), a company unable to comply does not face legal consequences. From Wikipedia: "In the case U.S. v. New York Telephone Co. 434 U.S. 159 (1977), the Supreme Court established a three-factor test for the admissible application of the All Writs Act: the party ordered to perform an action cannot be too far removed from the case, the government's request cannot impose an undue burden on that party, and the party's assistance is necessary."[1] I'm not a lawyer (and law can be tricky), but forcing a company to do something impossible (breaking into a truly secure device) seems very clearly to be a "undue burden". The real issue here is that Apple has created a device that is possible for them to backdoor themselves, and the clear solution is to remove that capability from future devices. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Writs_Act#Conditions_for_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Writs_Act#Conditions_for_u...