That&#x27;s an extenuating but, so far as I&#x27;m aware, both moot and nonessential criterion.<p>Virtually all the relevant phone data and metadata are available from other sources, including call, message, and email data, and backups until six weeks prior to the attacks.<p>Apple could have provided a data extraction on request, as it has done previously.  This wasn&#x27;t what the FBI had demanded.<p>Due to the FBI&#x27;s own actions and direction, the data on the phone has quite probably already been destroyed.<p>Legally, my read is that the request has few or no merits.