Tech Industry Titans Take Sides in FBI-Apple Battle John Ribeiro - InfoWorld
go to original February 27, 2016

Tech industry titans like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are weighing in on the legal battle between the FBI and Apple over access to a killer's iPhone. (The National)

The tech industry is rallying behind Apple in its appeal against a court order asking it to help the FBI unlock an iPhone 5c, with Facebook, Google, and Microsoft planning submissions in court in support of the iPhone maker.

"The industry is aligned on this issue and Facebook is participating in a joint submission with other technology companies," a spokeswoman for the company wrote in an email Thursday.

Other companies expected to join in making the submission are Twitter and Amazon.com, but there might be others.

Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ordered Apple last week to provide assistance, if necessary by providing signed software that would help the FBI try different passcodes by brute force on the locked iPhone 5c, without triggering an auto-erase feature in the phone. The device was used by one of the terrorists in the San Bernardino, California, attack on Dec. 2.

On Thursday, Apple appealed the order, saying that at issue is not an isolated iPhone, but the Department of Justice and the FBI "seeking through the courts a dangerous power that Congress and the American people have withheld: the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe." The company claimed the court order violated the U.S. Constitution.

Read the rest at InfoWorld

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!