The FBI has been clear about what it wants: for Apple to help it bypass the security features on an iPhone 5c used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, so it can unlock the phone without wiping the data off the device.
Apple has so far refused to comply, but it hasn’t offered any alternative solutions. And that irritated some members of Congress in today’s (March 1) House judiciary committee hearing.
“All you’ve been doing is saying, ‘No, no, no no,'” Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin, told Apple counsel Bruce Sewell as he testified before the committee. ”The thing is you ask Congress to do something, and I asked you what Congress should do. You said we have nothing. I said the FBI has provided specific policy proposals to ensure law enforcement can get this information.”
Sewell responded by saying that “what we’re asking for is a debate on this.”
“I don’t have a proposal,” he continued. “I don’t have a solution for this. What I think we need to do is give an appropriate and fair hearing.”
In his opening statement, Sewell said the battle between Apple and the FBI should not be decided by a “warrant request based on a 220-year-old statute [the All Writs Act],” and instead by Congress (and thus the people). Sewell said the company would ultimately “follow the law” as determined by Congress, but Sensenbrenner objected that affidavits and warrants are also processes of the law.
Without specific policy solutions, the congressman said he and his colleagues are “simply [left] to our own devices.” He went on, ”We’ll be very happy to do that, but I can guarantee you won’t like the result.”