County governments are typically recognized incorporated organizations that have no real line of authority or connection with the federal government.
So no, the FBI or federal doesn't have some ownership claim that makes it ok to break into. As others point out they have basically seized the device from its owner in the course of investigation.
Regarding the Director's double speak I think it is relevant. The FBI or federal government is still not the owner. Regardless of whether the device was seized or surrendered the property is still owned by the county.
> What he's saying is "we want it both ways". We don't want to take away security for users, we just want to make it easier for someone who's not the owner of the phone to get into it.
Why didn't they go through proper channels? Why did they reset the iCloud passwords? What steps have they taken to prevent this from happening in the future?
The FBI is doing a lot of hand waving and there is no accountability. Where are all those fiscal conservatives when we need them?
The government ran its own tests of the scenarios and found that to be true: https://www.scribd.com/doc/303759192/Declaration-by-Stacey-P... (paragraphs 37-39)
Apple's engineer's response left that assertion unchallenged (while challenging other stuff wrong with paragraphs 37-39, see his paragraphs 32-33): https://www.scribd.com/doc/304898553/SUPPLEMENTAL-DECLARATIO...
Of course, you can choose not to believe the government that the phone was found powered off (http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Apple-govt-R...), but I think you'd have to pick and choose what you're willing to believe and not believe from what the government have said.
Finally, even though it wouldn't have helped, it's clear Pluhar's team did not consider the iCloud backup possibility when they were making their examination, so they very well could have screwed this up. It's just that they didn't in this case.
It's also possible the phone was actually found powered on and the battery was drained and it turned off by the time Pluhar's team examined it the same day. It wasn't mentioned if anyone checked it and tried to make sure it was kept charged (probably not). I imagine it might be difficult to train the officers on the ground about mobile device forensics best practices, since they change fairly frequently.
The whole thing was a very poor allocation of resources. Of course, those whose promotions and maybe even jobs are on the line will fight back any claim of incompetence or malice.