FBI blacks out most details on hack of terrorist's iPhone
SAN FRANCISCO — A heavily redacted Friday evening data dump by
the FBI revealed almost nothing about how the agency was able to break
into the locked iPhone of one of the gunmen in the December terrorist attack in
San Bernardino. The Justice Department released close to 100 pages of
records in response to a lawsuit by USA TODAY and two other news
organizations.
The suit, filed on September
16, 2016, sought information about how the agency was able to break into a
locked iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook. The attack by Farook and his
wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people and wounded 22 others. Malik pledged
allegiance to the Islamic State as the attack began.
USA TODAY, others sue FBI for info on phone hack of San Bernardino
shooter
Shortly after the attack, FBI
agents tried unsuccessfully to access Farook’s iPhone as they searched for
other ties to the terror group. The agency told lawmakers that they had been
stymied by the phone’s security features.
The suit asked the source of the
security exploit agents used to unlock the phone, and how much the government
paid for it. The FBI had refused to provide that information to the
organizations under the Freedom of Information Act. Gannett, the parent of USA
TODAY, the Associated Press, and Vice Media filed the suit.
The Justice Department spent more
than a month last year in a legal battle with Apple over whether it could
legally force the tech giant to help a.
gents bypass the security feature
on Farook's phone. The dispute roiled the tech industry and prompted
a fierce debate about the extent of the government’s power to pry into digital
communications. It ended when the FBI said an “outside party” had cracked the
phone without Apple’s help.
Friday's data release
included dozens of pages of contracting boilerplate but no information about
the source of the exploit or its cost. The FBI indicated in the records that
both of those details are classified. FBI Director James Comey intimated
during a public forum last year that the price was more than $1 million.
Apple v FBI timeline: 43 days
that rocked tech
The documents did show
that after the FBI’s clash with Apple became public, at least three other
companies expressed interest in cracking the phone, even though none of
them had by that point started developing a tool that would have allowed them
to do so.
The redactions were
extensive, including the blacking out of the date on which the FBI got the
internal green-light to proceed with the contract and clean air and water
certifications filled out by the contractor and others.
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