The FBI’s case against Apple may be over, but the repercussions involved in this battle sure aren’t.
Apple has already made clear its belief that this particular case should never have been brought, and now activist group Fight for the Future — which has played a vocal role in this ongoing story — claims that this will be recorded as the biggest PR disaster in FBI history.
“The FBI’s credibility just hit a new low,” said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, “They repeatedly lied to the court and the public in pursuit of a dangerous precedent that would have made all of us less safe. Fortunately, Internet users mobilized quickly and powerfully to educate the public about the dangers of backdoors, and together we forced the government to back down.”
The FBI claimed in court that there was no way for it to access the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, other than for Apple to be forced to help crack its own software — something Apple steadfastly refused to do. In the end, the FBI apparently found another way to do so by enlisting the help of Israeli tech security firm Cellebrite to gain access to the handset.
During the FBI’s attack on Apple, Fight for the Future helped organize grassroots protests against government iPhone hacking in close to 50 cities around the United States.
“This will go down in history as one of the FBI’s biggest public relations failures,” added Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder of Fight for the Future, “It couldn’t be clearer that they read the tea leaves, saw they were going to lose both in the court of law and the court of public opinion, and gave up, for now at least.”
Do you agree that this case has been a net negative for the Department of Justice? Leave your comments below.
