Privacy advocates, legal and computer security experts, and over 30 major tech companies filed briefs with a California court on Thursday asking it to dismiss the FBI order that would force Apple to help unlock the phone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Support came from a wide range of individuals, including a United Nations human rights official and Salihin Kondoker, the husband of a surviving victim of the December shooting.
The “friend of the court” submissions are the latest development in a saga pitting Apple against the FBI over the bureau’s attempts to unlock a San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. The FBI’s position has drawn support from law enforcement leaders, sharp scrutiny from Congress and outrage from privacy activists.
Related: Apple v. FBI: Examining the slippery slope argument
Never a company to bypass a good public relations opportunity, Apple created a website to aggregate amicus briefs and letters to the court submitted in its favor, circumventing the court’s sometimes slow digital processing system.
Most prominent among Apple’s supporters was a joint filing from 15 Silicon Valley giants, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. In a brief that voiced concerns about government overreach and the failure to consult Congress, the companies argued that a decision against Apple threatens the very nature of their products.
“How apps and programs store data is not just—as the government claims—a “public brand marketing strategy.” It is at the core of the products’ identities,” the statement, embedded below, reads. “Indeed, how companies store and manage customers’ data is one way companies tailor their chat, e-mail, social-media, and data storage solutions to customers’ needs. Change those features and the government has changed the product in a fundamental way.”
Amicus Brief for Apple from Major Tech Companies
Additionally 17 other Silicon Valley companies, including Twitter, eBay, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Medium, Kickstarter, and Reddit filed a similar statement of support, emphasizing the importance of maintaining consumer confidence in the area of privacy.
“The government’s demand here will force companies to violate existing representations to their users regarding access to, and the security of, their data, and will undermine their ability to make such assurances in the future,“ the statement read. “Similarly, the government could require companies to break other aspects of their agreements with users—by collecting more information than disclosed, sharing the data in undisclosed or unintended ways, or even surreptitiously forcing users to download code mandated by the government to weaken the privacy and safety protections promised to users.”
AT&T and Intel also filed individual briefs backing Apple.
The App Association, which represents more than 5,000 mobile tech companies, expressed concern about the economic effects that a decision against Apple could have on its emerging market and small businesses across America.
“Just one tool to protect privacy and security is directly implicated in this case, but what the Government seeks to do would send rippling effects through the entire digital economy, particularly for those who develop software for the mobile economy,” the group’s brief reads.
Seven security experts, including cryptographer Bruce Schneier and Charlie Miller, who recently revealed vulnerabilities in Chrysler’s automotive systems, expressed doubt that Apple would be able to prevent outsiders, including criminals, from stealing and using what Apple is calling the “GovtOS” software that the FBI wants it to create.
“For practical reasons, the security bypass this Court would order Apple to create almost certainly will be used on other iPhones in the future,” their joint brief reads. “This spread increases the risk that the forensic software will escape Apple’s control either through theft, embezzlement, or order of another court, including a foreign government.”
Kondoker, whose wife, Anies, was shot three times at the holiday party where Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people, appealed personally to Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym, arguing that the decision in this case is not just about the FBI’s investigation.
By Alyssa Bereznak.
Culled from Yahoo News.
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