by Jason Snell
‘F.B.I. Error Locked San Bernardino Attacker’s iPhone’
Headlines like this one are a sign that the hearing didn’t really go your way.
Then there’s this:
Mr. Comey stressed that the fight with Apple was about trying to get as much information as possible about the San Bernardino attack — not about gaining a powerful law enforcement tool elsewhere.
But when he was asked whether the F.B.I. would seek to unlock other encrypted phones if it prevailed in the San Bernardino case, he responded, “Of course.”
In the audience were relatives of a Louisiana woman, Brittney Mills, who was shot to death at her doorstep last year when she was about eight months pregnant.
In other words, this is entirely about this one incident—until the moment when it is suddenly about all the other incidents, too.