{"id":29525,"date":"2016-02-23T09:01:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T17:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/victims-in-attack-support-efforts-to-hack-iphone\/"},"modified":"2016-02-23T09:01:33","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T17:01:33","slug":"victims-in-attack-support-efforts-to-hack-iphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/victims-in-attack-support-efforts-to-hack-iphone\/","title":{"rendered":"Victims in attack support efforts to hack iPhone"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON<\/strong> \u2014 Some family members of victims and survivors of the San Bernardino terror attack will file court papers in support of a judge\u2019s order that Apple Inc. help the FBI hack into a locked iPhone as part of the terrorism investigation, a lawyer and others said Monday.<\/p>\n

A Los Angeles attorney, Stephen Larson, said he represents at least several families of victims and other employees affected by the attack. He said the U.S. Attorney in the case, Eileen Decker, sought his help.<\/p>\n

Larson said he will file a brief supporting the Justice Department before March 3.<\/p>\n

The victims \u201chave questions that go simply beyond the criminal investigation … in terms of why this happened, how this happened, why they were targeted, is there anything about them on the iPhone \u2014 things that are more of a personal victim\u201d view, Larson said.<\/p>\n

Robert Velasco, whose 27-year-old daughter Yvette Velasco was killed in the shooting, told The Associated Press that he didn\u2019t have to think long before agreeing to have his name added to the legal filing in support of the FBI.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to me to have my name in there,\u201d Velasco said. \u201cI lost my daughter in this and I want the court to see that I am seeking justice for my daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Velasco said the phone could reveal other terror plots or that other people were involved in planning the San Bernardino attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way to find out is to open up that phone and get in there,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of the families of the victims, we\u2019re kind of angry and confused as to why Apple is refusing to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The appeal from victim family members gives the Justice Department additional support in a case that has sparked a national debate over digital privacy rights and national security interests. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym ordered Apple last week to assist investigators by creating specialized software that would let the FBI rapidly test random passcode combinations to try to unlock the iPhone and view data stored on it.<\/p>\n

The county-issued iPhone 5C was used by Syed Farook, who with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people at an office training in December before they died in a gun battle with police. The government said they had been at least partly inspired by the Islamic State.<\/p>\n

The couple physically destroyed two personal phones so completely that the FBI has been unable to recover information from them.<\/p>\n

Farook had worked as a county health inspector. Larson said the government has a strong case because of Farook\u2019s diminished privacy interests as a \u201cdead, murderous terrorist\u201d and because the phone was owned by his employer, the county government. \u201cYou\u2019re weighing that against the interest of enforcement in an investigation and the victims and their interest in obtaining this knowledge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook acknowledged in a letter to employees earlier Monday that that \u201cit does not feel right\u201d to refuse to help the FBI, but that doing so would threaten data security for millions by creating essentially a master key that could later be duplicated and used against other phones.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no tolerance or sympathy for terrorists,\u201d Cook wrote in an email. \u201cWhen they commit unspeakable acts like the tragic attacks in San Bernardino, we work to help the authorities pursue justice for the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook\u2019s email came hours after FBI director James Comey said in an online post that Apple owes it to the San Bernardino victims to cooperate and the FBI \u201ccan\u2019t look the survivors in the eye, or ourselves in the mirror, if we don\u2019t follow this lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gregory Clayborn, whose 27-year-old daughter, Sierra, died in the attack, said he hasn\u2019t been asked to join the case but believes Apple is obligated to unlock the phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis makes me a little bit angry with Apple,\u201d Clayborn said. \u201cIt makes me question their interest in the safety of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clayborn said he understands why the company wouldn\u2019t want the FBI to have the software to access anyone\u2019s phones. But unlocking one phone for the FBI, he said, is \u201cas simple as it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday expressed his support of Apple.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Zuckerberg said he believes in helping the government in its fight against terrorist but that encryption is important.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that back doors into encryption is going to increase security or is in the direction the world is going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Apple\u2019s supporters planned to protest the FBI\u2019s demands on Tuesday evening outside Apple\u2019s stories in about 50 cities in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Hong Kong. In Washington, people were being asked to protest outside the FBI\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n

According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, 51 percent of Americans said Apple should unlock the iPhone to assist the ongoing FBI investigation, while 38 percent said Apple should not to ensure the security of other users\u2019 information. Eleven percent gave no opinion. The telephone survey was conducted Feb. 18 through Feb. 21 among 1,002 adults.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Myers reported from Los Angeles. AP writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Joe Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, contributed to this report. Follow Tami Abdollah on Twitter at https:\/\/twitter.com\/latams and Amanda Myers at https:\/\/twitter.com\/AmandaLeeAP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Some family members of victims and survivors of the San Bernardino terror attack will file court papers in support of a judge\u2019s order that Apple Inc. help the FBI hack into a locked iPhone as part of the terrorism investigation, a lawyer and others said Monday. A Los Angeles attorney, Stephen Larson, said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-29525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29525"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=29525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}