While true, in your examples the third party is obtaining something that is already within their possession and they are not being asked to create something new.  There is a reasonableness to searching for a document, but essentially Apple is being asked to create something that does not exist.<p>Think about the first court case where this &quot;FBiOS&quot; is used against a person that is on trial. Wouldn&#x27;t the defense have a potential field day with this, and wouldn&#x27;t Apple then be drug into every trial to testify?  I could see the defense claiming that because the OS was replaced it is impossible to determine for sure what the original device contained versus what the government may have added to it.<p>Essentially from my very limited understanding of forensic techniques, techs are not allowed to ever add software to a device and can only search the device.  Otherwise they are essentially &quot;modifying&quot; evidence.   But I am not an expert in this area so I may not be fully understanding some of the intricacies.