Apple has strong words for the Justice Department in a document filed in a federal court case in New York where it has been asked to bypass an iPhone’s security. The simple fact that the feds  unlocked a phone without any help shows that they didn’t need it in the first place, Apple asserts: “The government has utterly failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate that Apple’s assistance in this case is necessary.”

The 50-page order absolved Apple of any obligation to assist the government in this case — but Orenstein also concluded that the All Writs Act, an 18th-century law now being used to compel tech companies to unlock devices, is legally insufficient to be used in that manner:
If such a precedent were to propagate and be adopted by other courts or supported in superior ones, it would be a serious blow against the FBI’s ability to use All Writs as an all-purpose phone-opener, as it currently does in dozens of cases.
Apple continues swinging in its preliminary notes, taking the government to task for failing to make any attempt to use other methods to unlock the phone:
And it gets its digs in on this implementation of All Writs as well, for the record:
We’ll know soon whether U.S. District Judge Margo Brody will find Apple’s stream of precedent-backed invective convincing.
