Monday, March 28, 2016
FBI Drops Apple Lawsuit After It Hacks San Bernardino Shooter's iPhone
The FBI said in a legal filing on Monday that it is dropping its lawsuit against Apple, after its successfully access the data stored on the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. According the filing, the Department of Justice is dropping the case against Apple, which had sought to force Apple to develop a method to allow the FBI to circumvent a feature which erases contents on an iPhone after ten incorrect password attempts. The filing by the DOJ did not say how the FBI was able to access the phone. The FBI had filed suit on February 16th seeking Apple's help in accessing the terrorist's phone. That lawsuit had raised an uproar in the technology industry and among privacy rights advocates, who argued that--despite the FBI's legal right to access the phone--Apple should not weaken its software in order to help the FBI.