DOJ Accesses iPhone Used By San Bernardino Shooter, Drops Apple Lawsuit

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Syed Rizwan Farook (right) and wife Tashfeen Malik were the attackers in the December shooting in San Bernardino. Photo: United Press International

SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — The U.S. Justice Department said Monday it has been able to gain access to data stored on an encrypted iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, and it has asked the court to withdraw an order to force Apple to assist in disabling passcode protection.

Apple had fought a court order obtained by the FBI last month that would have forced it to write new software to disable the protection feature and allow access to the phone used by shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, the husband in the husband-and-wife duo responsible for the mass shooting Dec. 14 in San Bernardino during which 14 people were killed and 22 were wounded.

Tensions had been building over six weeks between the Department of Justice and the tech giant Apple. Most of the technology industry reportedly stood behind Apple, which argued there was no law or statute allowing the government to force compliance in the matter.

Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed the issue in an interview with Time last week.

“It’s not about one phone. It’s very much about the future,” he said. “You have a guy in Manhattan saying I’ve got 175 phones that I want to take through this process. You’ve got other cases springing up all over the place where they want phones taken through the process. So it’s not about one phone, and they know it’s not about one phone.”

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