More Apple News

Public opinion may be divided on whether Apple should modify its mobile software to help the FBI gain access to a terrorist's iPhone, but several leading tech companies and privacy groups are definitely siding with Apple CEO Tim Cook.

   

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the first in what's expected to be a series of amicus briefs in federal court supporting Apple's decision to challenge a February 16 court order that demands the company write a new version of its iOS software to bypass the phone's security. Microsoft, Google, Twitter and Facebook, and privacy groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have said they're also going to submit amicus briefs on Apple's behalf by the March 3 deadline.

Apple has set up a dedicated page on its website to collect all the amicus briefs.

   

"While the government can in some circumstances require private parties to support law-enforcement investigations...law enforcement may not commandeer innocent third parties into becoming its undercover agents, its spies, or its hackers," the ACLU wrote in its brief on Wednesday (see below). "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."