Some victims in mass shooting support efforts to hack iPhone
ASSOCIATED PRESS
An Apple iPhone 6s Plus smartphone is displayed at an Apple store.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Apple CEO Tim Cook, left, spoke in Milan, Italy in Nov. 2015. FBI Director James Comey attended the 27th Annual Remembrance Ceremony for the victims of Pan Am Flight 103.
WASHINGTON » Some victims and affected families in the mass shootings in southern California will file documents in support of a U.S. magistrate judge’s order that Apple Inc. help the FBI hack into a locked iPhone as part of the terrorism investigation, a lawyer said today.
A Los Angeles attorney, Stephen Larson, said he represents at least several families of victims and other employees he declined to identify but who were affected by the shootings. He said the U.S. attorney in the case, Eileen Decker, sought his help. Larson said he will file a brief supporting the Justice Department before March 3.
The victims “have questions that go simply beyond the criminal investigation … in terms of why this happened, how this happened, why they were targeted, is there anything about them on the iPhone — things that are more of a personal victim” view, Larson said.
George Valasco, whose 27-year-old niece Yvette Velasco was killed in the shooting, said his brother — Yvette’s father — has agreed to have his name included in the brief.
“Frankly it’s difficult to understand why Apple would not jump at the opportunity to help uncover whatever information the phone may contain,” according to a family statement. “We’re not talking about an ordinary case here — this is an act of terrorism, where 14 Americans lost their lives, and many more were seriously injured. It’s potentially a matter of national security, where other Americans’ safety could be at risk.”
The family statement said that they want to ensure justice is served “and (that) the contents of the cellphone could contain critical information needed to ensure that.”
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An appeal by victims in the case gives the Justice Department additional support in a case that has sparked a national debate over digital privacy rights and national security interests. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in California ordered Apple last week to assist investigators by creating specialized software that would let the FBI rapidly test random passcode combinations to try to unlock the iPhone and view data stored on it.
The county-issued iPhone 5C was used by Syed Farook, who with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people at an office holiday party in December before they died in a gun battle with police. The government said they had been at least partly inspired by the Islamic State.
The couple physically destroyed two personal phones so completely that the FBI has been unable to recover information from them.
Farook had worked as a county health inspector. Larson said the government has a strong case because of Farook’s diminished privacy interests as a “dead, murderous terrorist” and because the phone was owned by his employer, the county government. “You’re weighing that against the interest of enforcement in an investigation and the victims and their interest in obtaining this knowledge,” he said.
Gregory Clayborn, whose 27-year-old daughter Sierra was killed in the attack, said he hasn’t been contacted to join the federal filing but thinks Apple has an obligation to unlock the phone.
“This makes me a little bit angry with Apple,” Clayborn said. “It makes me question their interest in the safety of this country.”
Clayborn said he owns Apple products and understands why the company wouldn’t want the FBI to have the software to access anyone’s phones but unlocking one for the agency is “as simple as it gets.”
Larson, a former U.S. district judge, said he knew Pym, the magistrate, and described her as an “extraordinary jurist” when she argued in his courtroom as a then-federal prosecutor.
Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook acknowledged in a letter to employees earlier today that that “it does not feel right” to refuse to help the FBI, but he said to do so would threaten data security for millions by creating essentially a master key that could later be duplicated and used against other phones.
“We have no tolerance or sympathy for terrorists,” Cook wrote in an early morning email. “When they commit unspeakable acts like the tragic attacks in San Bernardino, we work to help the authorities pursue justice for the victims.”
Cook’s email came hours after FBI director James Comey said in an online post that Apple owes it to the San Bernardino victims to cooperate and the FBI “can’t look the survivors in the eye, or ourselves in the mirror, if we don’t follow this lead.”
Apple’s supporters are planning to turn out to back the company in protests against the FBI in the case, planned Tuesday evening outside Apple’s stories in about 50 cities in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Hong Kong. In Washington, people are being asked to express their displeasure outside the FBI’s headquarters.
According to Pew Research Center, 51 percent of Americans say Apple should unlock the iPhone to assist the ongoing FBI investigation, while 38 percent say Apple should not to ensure the security of other users’ information. Eleven percent gave no opinion. The survey was conducted from Feb. 18 through Feb. 21 among 1,002 adults.
Myers reported from Los Angeles. AP writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
21 responses to “Some victims in mass shooting support efforts to hack iPhone”
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I am an apple iphone fan since the day they were invented, but I think the company is doing the wrong thing. You can create the program and keep it confidential. Your fears are unjustified.
I agree. Let the FBI give the phone to Apple. They unlock it, and give it back to the FBI.
FBI would have to be with the phone the entire time Apple had it to ensure “Chain of custody” is not violated.
Then again, FBI cyber bozos already blew it when they allowed the phone’s ID code to be changed while in their custody. Further complicating the work to unlock it and breaking the encryption. So much for not tampering with evidence.
FBI/Government hackers are 100% able to do it themselves. They just don’t want to admit they can. . .
I bet Apple will soon get a big endorsement from ISIS and other terrorists as their preferred brand in regards to smart phones…
It’s that kind of thinking that passed the Patriot Act which was wildly abused. And you want to give the government even more power to monitor our lives?
“You can create the program and keep it confidential”
Really? Tell me how that’s going to go when literally every agency asks for Apple to do what they did for for the FBI.
And then every other government does the same.
The FBI is creating this huge controversy to cover up the plain fact that they did not do their jobs BEFORE the San Bernardino shootings. Now they want to perform forensics on the shooter’s phone to find out what leads they missed and where they failed in preventing this attack. The FBI says “Apple owes it to the San Bernardino victims” – what did the FBI owe to those victims and the American public in general, in terms of using the already sweeping intrusions into our lives to prevent such terrorism? Supposedly they were going to be able to do that, once we allowed our privacy and personal liberty to be compromised – but the shootings and assaults keep happening, regardless. Then the FBI wants even greater permission to intrude, supposedly to prevent “the next attack”. I don’t believe in their ability to do that.
Look at the bigger picture:
http://www.cagle.com/2016/02/apple-courts-and-despots/
It’s not millions of people. It’s billions of people who will be giving up their privacy and freedom.
You have quite the conspiratorial imagination.
You seem unaware that the FBI and law enforcement have for years on record, in writing, have been wanting a backdoor into iOS.
if another person dies apple should be held responsible
Pretty much why Apple won’t do it. They won’t be responsible for despotic regimes using this to suppress journalists and political dissent.
They won’t be responsible for helping Putin murder those who would seek to reveal his corruption. Perhaps you need to expand your view?
When US security is involved? Bad decision.
By this measure we should put surveillance cameras in every home and a national gun registry with GPS locators on every firearm.
If the government is successful in cracking this case, what’s to stop them from continuing this with the other companies? They might even go as far as to ask Apple to decode their other products such as my 27 inch, iMac ‘s puppy videos on YouTube.
If I go to an Apple store because I inadvertently locked my iPhone, will the store refuse to unlock it? It is not like the FBI is asking Apple to give them the process or software that will unlock the iPhone, they are asking APPLE to unlock it in their own private, secret lab. Stop being so f-ing paranoid!
You msut not understand whats going on…
Most people don’t understand what’s happening and how once Apple creates this there is no going back.
If you’re willing to give up your freedom for little security… then you don’t deserve neither…
Im a Mac fan… I believe they are doing the right thing. Its a dangerous road the Gov asking…
The FBI demand to Apple is that they create a key or back door device which does not currently exist to allow it to hack into the iPhone.
Apple would not be allowed to decrypt the iPhone in question and then turn the info over to the FBI. The FBI wants to do it themselves once they are
given the key from Apple.
If the FBI had the key it could and will use it to decrypt any Apple electronic device they wanted with out any oversight. The FBI would then share
the key with other government agencies and once that happened it would without question fall into the hands of others, some of whom are not
friendly to our country. It would be like opening Pandora’s box.
If the FBI truly wanted the info on the IPhone and to determine who the San Bernadino jihadists were communicating with, all they have to do is go to the
NSA who has been recording all phone calls, emails and other communications both internal and external and probably in other countries as well since
2009. Ask yourself, why is the FBI not doing this. Answer: This is all a ploy to increase government over-reach into spying on all of us even more than
they are doing now and to set a precedent to ensure companies like Apple will have no choice but to do whatever the government wants.
Unfortunately, the general public is dumber than donut and are easily manipulated by the controlled mass media to follow the government line and
to give up what few rights they now have, all in the name of keeping us all safe.