Apple can comply with the FBI court order
Crucially, this is software which doesn&#x27;t currently exist in the world and which Apple has no intention of voluntarily writing. There is no specific law or regulation (like CALEA) which requires Apple to provide this functionality.<p>What the FBI is attempting is to use &#x27;All Writs Act&#x27; from 1789 which authorizes Federal courts to issue &quot;all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.&quot; Are there limits to what a judge can order a person, or a company, to provide?<p>A warrant describes &quot;the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.&quot; I would not expect a judge can draft a warrant for something which doesn&#x27;t actually exist, and then force someone to create it.<p>This is not about providing physical access, or about producing documents which are in your possession. This is whether the government can usurp your workforce to make you create something that only you are capable of creating, against your will, not because there&#x27;s actually a law which says you have to provide that capability, but simply because some investigator has probable cause that given such a tool they could use it to find evidence of a crime!<p>If &#x27;All Writs&#x27; somehow does give the government the ability to enslave software developers to creating this particular backdoor, what is there to legally differentiate this request from, for example, one that would function over WiFi or LTE remotely?<p>There&#x27;s been a lot of discussion about the &#x27;secure enclave&#x27; and how this particular attack isn&#x27;t possible on the iPhone 6. I think that&#x27;s missing the point.... If &#x27;All Writs&#x27; can force Apple to open a black-hat lab responsible for developing backdoor firmware for the 5C, then it can do the same for the 6. For example, why not force Apple to provide remote access to a suspect&#x27;s device over LTE while the device is unlocked &#x2F; in use? While we&#x27;re at it, the iPhone has perfectly good cameras and microphones, let&#x27;s force Apple to provide real-time feeds.<p>Think about the sheer quantity of networked devices which exist (or will exist) in an average home which could be used in the course of an investigation. If they can force Apple to create a 5C backdoor, I can&#x27;t see any reason they can&#x27;t apply the same logic to WiFi cameras, Xbox Kinects, or even your cars OnStar. Heck, even TV remotes come with microphones and bluetooth now... And don&#x27;t get me started on Amazon Echo!<p>Fundamentally, the question is can you force a device manufacturer to implement backdoors into their products to be used against their own customers? Notably, <i>service providers</i> have already lost that battle, they are required to architect their systems to be able to spy on their users and provide that data to law enforcement, often through specially design real-time dashboards. At least in that case it is based on duly enacted legislation with that specific intent.<p>But this is something really quite shocking -- can investigators, simply through obtaining a warrant, force companies to re-design the personal devices that we own and keep with us almost every moment of the day to spy on us? I truly hope not.