Apple has said it’s willing to take its fight against the FBI over iPhone backdoors to the Supreme Court, and today it got a little help from Silicon Valley, as a number of tech giants filed amicus briefs and letters to the court in support of Apple.
Days after Apple’s top lawyer faced off against FBI Director James Comey on Capitol Hill, firms like Twitter, Reddit, Intel, AT&T, and more have submitted statements that urge the court not to require Apple to create an operating system that would unlock encrypted iPhones.
One company that’s not immediately jumping to Apple’s defense, at least not yet? Samsung. “Protecting our customers’ privacy is extremely important, but we have not decided whether to file an amicus brief in the current case,” Samsung told Bloomberg in an emailed statement.
“Ensuring trust in our products and services is our top priority. Our phones are embedded with encryption that protects privacy and content, and they do not have backdoors. When required to do so, and within the law, we work with law enforcement agencies. However, any requirement to create a backdoor could undermine consumers’ trust.”
Yesterday, Apple launched a webpage to highlight many of the groups that have chosen to support the company, so check back there as more are posted. But here’s what the tech world has to say about the issue thus far:
INTEL: Intel acknowledged “the case presents difficult choices,” but said the FBI’s request is “an unprecedented step for the government to require a company to develop technology that weakens security in a commercial product. Such a move chills innovation. Intel believes we need to accomplish safety, security, and personal privacy. We also believe we need a greater dialogue among and between all stakeholders. We’re eager to be part of that conversation.”
AT&T: AT&T pushed for Congress to address the issue. “Only Congress can address these issues in a sufficiently comprehensive, uniform, and fair manner,” wrote David McAtee, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel. “All of us—the government, the courts, consumers and companies—need clear and uniform rules that can be produced only through a broadly-informed, transparent and accountable legislative process. In the meantime, we should not consider the All Writs Act, which merely authorizes the judiciary to enforce existing law, as a substitute for that process.
AIRBNB, LINKEDIN, REDDIT, TWITTER, AND MORE: In a joint filing that also included Atlassian, Automattic, CloudFlare, eBay, GitHub, Kickstarter, Mapbox, Medium, Meetup, Square, Twilio, and Wicker, the companies argued that the feds’ demand “not only has no legal basis under the All Writs Act or any other law, but threatens the core principles of privacy, security, and transparency that underlie the fabric of the Internet.” The request, they said, “would set a dangerous precedent, in which the government could sidestep established legal procedures authorized by thorough, nuanced statutes to obtain users’ data in ways not contemplated by lawmakers.”
BOX: “Due in large part to my experience on 9/11, I have always fully supported Law Enforcement in their campaign against the agents of terror,” Box’s chief information security officer, wrote in a blog post. But the “FBI request of Apple to create a backdoor into the iPhone for Law Enforcement is exactly the kind of feature that will eventually be used against us.” If anything, “we need greater investment in encryption and in more fine-grained controls for our digital lives.”
MOZILLA: In a blog post, Mozilla said it joined a coalition of companies, including Google, Nest Labs, Facebook, WhatsApp, Evernote, Snapchat and Microsoft, “to help the court understand why it is dangerous to force technology companies to actively undermine their own security features.” Tech companies “should aspire to build ‘unhackable’ products,” but the FBI’s request means “we could all be told not to build secure products in the first place.”
ACLU: Law enforcement may not commandeer innocent third parties into becoming its undercover agents, its spies, or its hackers,” the organization said. “If the government prevails, then this case will be the first of many requiring companies to degrade the security and to undermine the trust in their products so essential to privacy in the digital age.
BUSINESS SOFTWARE ALLIANCE: The BSA, whose members include Microsoft and IBM, said “our groups have serious concerns over calls for weakened encryption and the implications they present to privacy and security. The All Writs Act does not authorize the government to force a company to create a new product or design a product in a particular way. Moreover, the government’s interpretation of the All Writs Act leaves no room for weighing critical issues like maintaining the security of individuals’ most personal information.
ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION: “The court order is akin to the government dictating a letter endorsing backdoors and forcing Apple to sign its forgery-proof name at the bottom,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director David Greene. “In our democracy, no one—not technology companies, coders, or average citizens—can be forced to write an article, carry a sign, post an update on Facebook or write and sign computer code that communicates or endorses a government idea that they don’t agree with. What the FBI asked the court to do violates free speech rights and puts the security and privacy of millions of people at risk. We are asking the court to throw out this dangerous and unconstitutional order.”
For more, check out PCMag’s interview with Peter Eckersley, chief computer scientist at the EFF and Amie Stepanovich, U.S. Policy Manager for Access Now (which also filed a brief today) about encryption.
Stephanie Mlot contributed to this story.
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