At this moment, it appears that the politics of the situation are shifting away from the FBI seeing a victory. Apple, Google, and other tech companies (AT&T excluded) are strongly opposed to the DOJ's interpretation of All Writs. Based on last week's hearings, Congress is either opposed or lukewarm (at best) to broadly interpreting it. And last week saw Ornstein's ruling come down pretty strongly against the government.

There may be new laws that eventually come out as a result of this, but for now I think smart money would be on betting against the FBI coming out on top in their current attempts to force Apple to unlock the San Bernadino murderer's iPhone 5.

It's a pleasant surprise to note that on this matter the system seems to be working.

In Brooklyn US Magistrate Judge James Orenstein was asked to issue an AWA to force Apple to break an iPhone password. He writes:

"It is thus clear that the government is relying on the AWA as a source of authority that is legislative in every meaningful way: something that can be cited as a basis for getting the relief it seeks in case after case without any need for adjudication of the particular circumstances of an individual case."[1][2]

Hopefully the Californian courts will agree.

[1] http://uk.businessinsider.com/brooklyn-judge-shreds-all-writ...

[2] https://www.eff.org/files/2016/02/29/applebrooklyn-2.29.16or...

I'm disappointed that BlackBerry isn't part of this but I think John Chen made it clear where he stands in this debate.

From a December article:

"Chen insinuated that if a Blackberry phone was at issue in the case Ars wrote about, he would comply with the search warrant."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/blackberry-ceo-sa...

Research in (Moral) Bankruptcy.

I wonder if RIM being an (originally) Canadian, not a US, company has anything to do with it.

Have you noticed that IBM is missing here. Here is a question posted as well at http://www.pixelstech.net/topic/140-Why-doesn-t-IBM-file-leg...

Probably because IBM isn't really in the consumer market, they focus on research and enterprise so they don't have as much skin in the game.

This isn't about what's right or wrong, Google, MSFT, and Facebook have the most to lose if the USG can compel them to intentionally reverse any security improvements they implement both in terms of operational overhead costs and in actual loss of customers as they would be more likely to migrate to other services that are either non-US based or those who haven't been squeezed yet by the USG.

This is going to be a game of domino's the 1st one to fall will set a precedent that then could be easily used in any court and if Apple falls, MSFT, Google and Facebook will quite likely be affected while IBM probably wont.

the ironic part is Google's well documented relationships with the CIA and the NSA.

This is a little like them agreeing with Apple while making backroom deals with the government. Not exactly a vote of confidence in my mind.

Other than their legal obligation to comply with the law, is there any evidence that Google is doing backroom deals with the CIA and NSA?

Yes, this is for show. I've seen a number of HN posts say things like "But they wouldn't dare co-operate in secret, think of the snafu -- someone would leak it!"

...

when that "someone" inside a big tech company is making 6 figure salaries and living comfortably and potential legal destruction from publicising even further "secret cooperation"

Money talks, no one wants to be a martyr.

>Money talks, no one wants to be a martyr.

Snowden

He was pretty rare. How many people have a cushy job doing what he did, and knew what he knew, yet didn't follow in his footsteps?

Well crap, I guess I have to support the FBI here, since Microsoft opposes their stance.

Geez, this site seems to be full of humorless people (or Microsoft fanboys). This is supposed to be a joke, people.