This Motion is wonderful!<p>&lt;&lt;Congress has never authorized judges to compel innocent third parties to  provide decryption services to the FBI.&gt;&gt;<p>&lt;&lt;The government says: “Just this once” and “Just this phone.” But the government knows those statements are not true; indeed the government has filed multiple other applications for similar orders, some of which are pending in other courts. And as news of this Court’s order broke last week, state and local officials  publicly declared their intent to use the proposed operating system to open hundreds of other seized devices—in cases having nothing to do with terrorism. If this order is  permitted to stand, it will only be a matter of days before some other prosecutor, in some other important case, before some other judge, seeks a similar order using this case as precedent. Once the floodgates open, they cannot be closed, and the device security that Apple has worked so tirelessly to achieve will be unwound without so much as a congressional vote.&gt;&gt;<p>&lt;&lt;federal courts themselves have never recognized an inherent authority to order non-parties to become de facto government agents in ongoing criminal investigations.&gt;&gt;<p>&lt;&lt;Apple is a private company that does not own or  possess the phone at issue, has no connection to the data that may or may not exist on the phone, and is not related in any way to the events giving rise to the investigation. This case is nothing like 
 New York Telephone Co., where there was probable cause to  believe that the phone company’s own facilities were “being employed to facilitate a criminal enterprise on a continuing basis.”  Id. at 174&gt;&gt;<p>&lt;&lt;Apple is not a “highly regulated public utility with a duty to serve the public.” &gt;&gt;<p>&lt;&lt;The All Writs Act does not allow the government to compel a manufacturer’s assistance merely because it has placed a good into the stream of commerce. Apple is no more connected to this phone than General Motors is to a company car used by a fraudster on his daily commute. &gt;&gt;<p>&lt;&lt;And if it succeeds here against Apple, there is no reason why the government could not deploy its new authority to compel other innocent and unrelated third-parties to do its bidding in the name of law enforcement. For example, under the same legal theories advocated by the government here, the government could argue that it should be permitted to force citizens to do all manner of things “necessary” to assist it in enforcing the laws, like compelling a pharmaceutical company against its will to produce drugs needed to carry out a lethal injection in furtherance of a lawfully issued death warrant, or requiring a journalist to plant a false story in order to help lure out a fugitive&gt;&gt;<p>&lt;&lt;Indeed, under the government’s formulation, any party whose assistance is deemed “necessary” by the government falls within the ambit of the All Writs Act and can be compelled to do anything the government needs to effectuate a lawful court order. While these sweeping powers might be nice to have from the government’s  perspective, they simply are not authorized by law and would violate the Constitution.&gt;&gt;<p>&lt;&lt;Under well-settled law, computer code is treated as speech within the meaning of the First Amendment [..] The Supreme Court has made clear that where, as here, the government seeks to compel speech, such action triggers First Amendment protections.&gt;&gt;<p>&lt;&lt;The government’s desire to leave no stone unturned, however well intentioned, does not authorize it to cut off debate and impose its views on society.&gt;<p>&lt;&lt;Apple would not agree to sign GovtOS voluntarily because it is not software that Apple wants created, deployed or released.&gt;&gt;<p>And this last gem:<p>&lt;&lt;Once the operating system is created it will need to go through Apple’s quality assurance and security testing process.&gt;&gt;