Apple is once again at the center of a privacy debate over the FBI and locked phones, this time after former President Donald Trump, at a rally on Wednesday, held Apple accountable for cooperating with the investigation, bringing the issue back to the center of public debate.
Multiple media outlets reported on Wednesday that President Trump spoke at a rally in North Carolina calling on the FBI to pressure Apple to unlock the apps and phones of the would-be assassin.
“They have to get Apple to open up the foreign app, and they have to get the second madman’s six phones to open up as well.”
Trump was referring to the cellphones seized by the FBI from two of the assassination plotters.
Stephanie Lai explained to Bloomberg:
The former president said the FBI did not have access to “three potentially foreign-based apps” on the phone of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the Pennsylvania man who shot and grazed Trump in the ear during a rally in July.
Trump also said that Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspected assassin arrested after a shootout with Secret Service agents at Trump’s Florida golf club, had six cell phones that the FBI “likewise had no access to.”
The FBI has not released any further details about the case, but previous reports have said Crooks’ phone was a Samsung, and as far as I can tell, there has been no official comment on whether Routh’s device was an iPhone, though Trump’s comments suggest it could be.
It’s unclear what Apple might be able to do to help Samsung phones open the app, or whether initial reports about the device’s identity were incorrect. Either way, Trump’s request for Apple’s involvement could spark a new public debate, possibly involving the FBI.
The background to this moment
In July, the FBI announced that it had successfully accessed Crooks’ phone, but Trump said the problem appeared to be with certain encrypted apps, not the phone’s operating system itself. It’s unclear whether Routh’s six devices have the same problem, but so far they don’t appear to have been accessed at all.
Details are few and far between at this point, and reports have been somewhat scattered, with the general belief being that encrypted messaging apps were involved in the FBI investigation, and some reports have also mentioned encrypted foreign accounts.
Meanwhile, Apple has been adamant that it is not possible to develop tools to access locked iPhones and encrypted data without jeopardizing the privacy and security of the entire user base.
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