Judge in New York rules in favor of Apple in case involving locked iPhone

An iPhone.
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

A federal judge in New York ruled Monday that the U.S. Justice Department cannot force Apple to give the FBI information from a locked iPhone seized during a drug investigation in Brooklyn.

The Department of Justice argued that the All Writs Act from 1789 gives prosecutors the authority to force Apple to bypass the passcode system in order to gain access to the iPhone, a claim that was rejected by Magistrate Judge James Orenstein. The ruling comes two weeks after a California magistrate judge ordered Apple to create software so the government can gain access to the locked iPhone of one of the shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, on Dec. 2.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.