San Bernardino Victims' Lawyer Makes Case Against Apple
During an interview with the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, Stephen Larson, a former U.S. District Judge who is now in private practice and representing some of the San Bernardino victims’ interests discussed the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) litigation.
“In this particular case there is no question in my mind that the government is warranted in seeking the relief from Apple. They need access to this cellphone, the victims deserve access to this cellphone or have the government obtain that information. There is a lot of unanswered questions here, and this is the biggest terrorist act that we’ve had in decades. At the same time, I’m hoping this is going to propel the type of debate that we’re seeing here and that needs to play out in Congress. We need legislation to adapt and adopt procedures in protocol to deal with this changing technology,” he said.
He weighed in on the possibility of Apple developing software to hack the iPhone for the government.
“There’s no question that software should not be out there and there needs to be prophylactic procedures put in place by Apple working with the government to make sure that does not happen, but that is certainly possible. I think there’s a lot of doom saying going on here that’s really not warranted. We have had these types of measures in other context to control technology, to give the government access to technology when they needed it. We’ve been doing this with wiretapping,” he said.
He also provided insight into the FBI warrant to Apple.
“Privacy concerns are important and they need to be balanced with our national security and law enforcement interests and that is what is happening in this case. A federal judge is carefully considering this, this will be fully vetted in courts. No one is giving away technology, no one is doing anything which is going to endanger anybody. We are being very careful—and we need to be careful and this needs to lead to legislation. Congress needs to take up this issue as well… Apple should not be using this platform for trying to stop a very legitimate law enforcement investigation.”