The question at hand is whether or not the DOJ can use the AWA to compel a company to weaken its product.  It&#x27;s unclear as yet whether the court will consider this too burdensome for Apple, or too expensive for the FBI to be able to reimburse Apple for any costs.<p>Apple&#x27;s argument is that this will set a precedent, and the FBI will ask to unlock many phones in the future, possibly even to the point of preventing Apple from creating a phone that is not unlockable.  Further, that the creation of the proposed hack will by its very nature put the whole iPhone ecosystem at risk if and when it gets out into the wild.  The more requests that the FBI makes, the more people Apple will need to train to service such requests, and the more risk that there is a leak.<p>The analogy here, although dramatic, would be the atom bomb.  Hillary even alluded to the need for a Manhattan-like project to circumvent encryption, although I don&#x27;t think she thought that would be received as a bad thing.<p>The FBI&#x27;s argument is that they&#x27;re only asking Apple to unlock a single iPhone.  The DOJ is unwilling to comment on how many iPhones law enforcement across the country would like to use this on, and defers to local officials to answer that question.  They are pretending to focus on this one phone while knowing full well the value of what they&#x27;re after.  They wouldn&#x27;t call up the AWA for a single phone.<p>Obama is unwilling to draw up legislation with congress about this issue given the nature of the public&#x27;s attitude about mass surveillance, particularly during an election year.  They&#x27;re probably terrified this issue would fracture the public vote and then there&#x27;s no telling who we will elect as the next President.  So, they directed the FBI to use the AWA.