Re: 1 No, the government can acknowledge that it cannot compel Apple to do anything. This is in violation of all four points of the All Writs Act. It's reall

Re: 1 No, the government can acknowledge that it cannot compel Apple to do anything. This is in violation of all four points of the All Writs Act. It's really not even close. This is such a strange situation to try to shove into this legal framework. Re: 2 Even if the search warrant was properly issued, the All Writs act cannot be used to expand jurisdiction to an area where the Federal Government doesn't already have it. The matter of security features on a private phone made by an entity who is not a party in this case is a rock-solid example. Re: 3 I, and Apple, and most legal scholars who have looked at this case do not believe this order to be particularly restricted. We are talking about forcing a company to rethink a crucial engineering decision on a complex piece of equipment and dedicate engineering effort to rewrite software in such a way that is completely at odds with the needs of the customer. Your argument is basically akin to saying, "well, they aren't saying they're going to personally kill Apple employees who don't comply, so this is actually a very moderate request." Re: what the government needs to do if it wants to stay relevant: You are mistaken if you think that these wild hypotheticals are the way that we make law. Nobody cares about the bizarre narrative of a kidnapper at an airport; case law is made exclusively on the basis of actual case or controversy. In the scenario you describe, you will sadly probably succeed at an act of horrific violence; I am not moved by your suggestion that the government will be able to stop this action even if the All Writs act did apply in this situation. This is the (relatively small) price of freedom. We live in a country where one is more likely to be killed by a falling vending machine than a terrorist act, but neither is a good enough reason to completely rethink the basis of our legal system.