FBI, Apple to testify to settle battle over iPhone encryption

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and American tech giant Apple will testify at a congressional hearing regarding a court order to force Apple to give the FBI data from the iPhone belonging to one of the alleged mass shooters in San Bernardino, California.

Apple's general counsel, Bruce Sewell, will argue Tuesday that creating a tool to unlock the phone would weaken the security of hundreds of millions of Apple devices, according to Sewell's prepared remarks before the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

“The decisions should be made by you and your colleagues as representatives of the people, rather than through a warrant request based on a 220-year-old statute,” Sewell is expected to tell the committee.

"Hackers and cyber criminals could use this to wreak havoc on our privacy and personal safety," he said in those remarks.

The US Justice Department, which is in charge of the FBI, has sought court orders to force Apple to extract data from 15 devices in the past four months, beginning with a case in New York City in which Apple declined to cooperate with investigators in October.

A federal judge on Monday denied the Justice Department’s request that Apple extract data from an iPhone in a drug case in New York, giving the company’s pro-privacy stance a boost.

During Tuesday’s congressional testimony, Sewell is expected to express Apple’s “deepest sympathies” to the victims of the San Bernardino attack, saying Apple “has no sympathy for terrorists,” and, “Justice should be served.”

But, “We feel strongly that our customers, their families, their friends and their neighbors will be better protected from thieves and terrorists if we can offer the very best protections for their data,” he will say.

The San Bernardino attack on December 2, 2015, which was allegedly carried out a by an extremist couple, was in fact a “false flag operation” conducted by three white paramilitary individuals to spread negative feelings toward Muslims in the US, says Dr. Kevin Barrett, a founding member of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance.

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