Apple CEO Tim Cook says FBI’s 2016 case about San Bernadino shooter’s locked iPhone was ‘very rigged’

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Cook said that the FBI acted in a “very
dishonest manner” and that the case was “very rigged.”



Apple CEO Tim Cook said it’s unfortunate the FBI’s
case to force the company to provide data from a terrorist’s iPhone in 2016
didn’t go to trial because that way the public could have seen the truth. 

Speaking on Tuesday at a Time Magazine conference in New York,
Cook was referring to the case of the San Bernadino shooter, Syed Farook, who
killed 14 people and injured 22 others at the Inland Regional Center.
Apple publicly opposed the FBI when it asked for access to data Farook’s work
phone, saying that what law enforcement was requesting would be a “master key”
capable of opening millions of iPhones
The case was dropped after the Department of Justice was able to
access the iPhone days before an expected trial. The company or person who was
eventually able to crack the iPhone’s security has not been made public.
“Now, after the inspector general reports have come out, our worst
fears have been confirmed — that it was a very rigged case to begin with,” Cook
said on Tuesday. “So I think this was not the government’s finest hour. I have
personally never seen the government apparatus move against a company like it
did here in a very dishonest manner.”
The government report that Cookreferenced includes passages that suggest some departments
within the FBI were close to gaining the ability to crack the iPhone 5C used by
Farook at the time of the Apple case but, due to miscommunication, those
capabilities were never mentioned in the legal battle with Apple.
FBI leaders worry that encryption technologies from tech companies
could enable criminals to delete or scramble evidence on their phones or
computers, putting the information out of the reach of law enforcement
investigators.
Officials refer to it as the “going dark ” issue.
It’s reached a stalemate in recent years as strong encryption features have
been built into products from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other big
tech companies.
Last year, Cook said that Apple would fight the FBI again if
the iPhone case happened a second time. On Tuesday, Cook also called for government regulations on privacy.