Apple wants panel of experts to deal with FBI demands

Apple still remains resistant to FBI’s request for a “backdoor” to the cell phone of one of the terrorists in the recent San Bernardino attack.

Tim Cook, the chief executive officer of Apple Inc., wrote an email to the employees of the American multinational technology company on Monday, saying the US government should withdraw its judicial order.

Cook had earlier asserted that he would defy the federal court order that demanded that Apple help the FBI over the matter as they had been unable to get into the iPhone 5c used by Syed Rizwan Farook.

“We feel the best way forward would be for the government to withdraw its demands under the All Writs Act,” Cook said in the email.

Last Tuesday, Apple was ordered by Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym of the Federal District Court for the District of Central California to bypass security functions on Farrok’s cell phone.

FBI experts fear losing the data on the phone permanently after 10 failed attempts to enter the password, arguing only Apple can solve the problem.

But Cook said in the internal email that the tech company would “gladly participate” in a “commission or other panel of experts on intelligence, technology and civil liberties to discuss the implications for law enforcement, national security, privacy and personal freedoms.”

A ‘master key’ for iPhone

Apple argues that the FBI’s demand to roll back data protections to iOS 7 would give authorities the chance to access other iPhones as well.

“This case is about much more than a single phone or a single investigation, so when we received the government’s order we knew we had to speak out. At stake is the data security of hundreds of millions of law-abiding people, and setting a dangerous precedent that threatens everyone’s civil liberties.”

Federal authorities, however, say that the move is necessary in their investigation into the massacre in a Department of Public Health training event and holiday party in San Bernardino, California, on December 2, 2015, which left 14 dead and 22 injured.

“We can’t look the survivors in the eye, or ourselves in the mirror, if we don’t follow this lead,” said James Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in a blog post. “We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the land.”

This is while NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden says the US government surveillance methods far surpass those of an ‘Orwellian’ state, referring to George Orwell’s classic novel “1984,” which describes a society where personal privacy is continuously invaded by spy agencies.

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