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FBI says it needs to search iPhone regardless of changed password

Tami Abdollah Associated Press

WASHINGTON – A decision to reset the password on an iCloud account tied to one of the San Bernardino attackers did not effectively thwart the investigation into the shooting, FBI officials said in a court filing Thursday as part of the Justice Department’s ongoing encryption dispute with Apple Inc.

FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress last week that “there was a mistake” made when the FBI asked San Bernardino County, which owned the phone, to reset the password for an account tied to Syed Farook, who along with his wife killed 14 people in the Dec. 2 shootings.

But in a sworn declaration Thursday, Chris Pluhar, an FBI agent involved in processing the evidence, said the password reset did not make a difference. Farook’s iPhone, which was found powered off, had the iCloud backups turned off for his mail, photos and notes, Pluhar said. Even with a full set of backups, the Justice Department said, the government would still have needed to search the phone “in order to leave no stone unturned” in the investigation.

The statement is aimed at rebutting earlier claims from Apple that said that if the FBI had not changed the iCloud password, its engineers could have helped investigators use a known – and therefore trusted – wireless connection to trick the iPhone into automatically backing up to iCloud.

The statement was part of a broader Justice Department filing designed to encourage a federal magistrate to affirm her decision last month to force Apple to help the FBI gain access to Farook’s phone.

In the filing, federal prosecutors argued the phone likely holds evidence of the eventual attack, and the government and community “need to know” what is on the device. Apple alone has the ability to help, and doing so is not unduly burdensome, the government said.

The brief, which sets the stage for a March 22 hearing in Southern California, marks a further escalation of rhetoric between the federal government and one of the world’s largest technology companies.