The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has officially ended legal action against Apple in the month-long encryption feud between the the tech giant and the FBI.
The Justice Department has moved to vacate a California court order compelling Apple provide aid in an ongoing FBI investigation into the San Bernardino shootings.
With a working exploit, law enforcement agents no longer require help from the iPhone maker and cannot, or need to, assert the All Writs Act to force Apple’s assistance.
The government said in a court filing,
“The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on Farook’s iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc. mandated by Court’s Order Compelling Apple Inc. to Assist Agents in Search dated February 16, 2016.
Accordingly, the government hereby requests that the Order Compelling Apple Inc. to Assist Agents in Search dated February 16, 2016 be vacated.”
Apple has issued a statement concerning the Department of Justice withdrawing its demand under the All Writs Act that the company aid in creating a version of iOS that would be faster and easier for the government to hack into.
“From the beginning, we objected to the FBI’s demand that Apple build a backdoor into the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and would set a dangerous precedent. As a result of the government’s dismissal, neither of these occurred. This case should never have been brought.
We will continue to help law enforcement with their investigations, as we have done all along, and we will continue to increase the security of our products as the threats and attacks on our data become more frequent and more sophisticated.
Apple believes deeply that people in the United States and around the world deserve data protection, security and privacy. Sacrificing one for the other only puts people and countries at greater risk.
This case raised issues which deserve a national conversation about our civil liberties, and our collective security and privacy. Apple remains committed to participating in that discussion.”
