Currently, Apple and The FBI are making their cases to the House Judiciary Committee, to determine whether or not Apple should have to assist the FBI in bypassing the encryption of an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
The hearing which involves FBI Director James Comey, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance and Apple chief counsel Bruce Sewell, began at 1pm EST. The Judiciary Committee’s goal is “to find a solution that allows law enforcement to effectively enforce the law without harming the competitiveness of U.S. encryption providers or the privacy protections of US citizens.”
In a previously released statement Sewell says, “We now find ourselves at the center of an extraordinary circumstance. The FBI has asked a court to order us to give them something we don’t have. To create an operating system that does not exist — because it would be too dangerous. They are asking for a backdoor into the iPhone — specifically to build a software tool that can break the encryption system which protects personal information on every iPhone.”
A federal judge in Brooklyn sides with Apple’s stance, saying that Congress has already considered and rejected a bill that would require companies like Apple to make the data on a locked iPhone available to law enforcement. “It is also clear that the government has made the considered decision that it is better off securing such crypto-legislative authority from the courts,” U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein said, “rather than taking the chance that open legislative debate might produce a result less to its liking.”
Orenstein went on to say, “Hackers and cyber criminals could use this to wreak havoc on our privacy and personal safety.”
As the hearing goes on, it’ll be interesting to see what Congress decides.
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