A district court judge has ordered Apple to unlock a cell phone used by one of the shooters in the California massacre. Apple is fighting the order, claiming that doing so could make it easier to for anyone to hack into phones.
Apple has secret keys that can open up the software that it will not give to the FBI. The FBI also wants Apple to create a program that will permit it to hack into phones at anytime. The problem lies with a toggle in “Settings” that will make the phone delete all information on it if someone fails to put in the right passcode more than 10 times. This would make it impossible for the FBI to use a program that can guess random codes.
The case has Fourth Amendment implications for various reasons, including conscripting a private entity to become a government agent.