SAN FRANCISCO — Apple has asked a federal judge to postpone demands for data from a locked iPhone in a Brooklyn drug case while the FBI attempts to break into the San Bernardino shooter’s phone without Apple’s help.
U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie directed federal prosecutors to file a reply by Tuesday.
Apple attorney Marc Zwillinger says the Brooklyn case will be affected by the outcome in the California case. The government is scheduled to update a California magistrate judge on April 5.
In a surprise shift in the month-long public dispute between the U.S. government and Apple over whether the iPhone maker should be forced to create a software workaround to its encryption, the Justice Department asked that a hearing on the case scheduled for Tuesday be canceled. It told the court that an unnamed outside party had come forward with a possible solution to getting into the iPhone that wouldn’t require Apple’s assistance.
Investigators are seeking information on a phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook who with his wife killed 14 people in the December mass shootings in San Bernardino, Calif.
[Source:- Usatoday]
