Lawyers, on Monday, announced that a number of victims and their families affected by the mass shootings in southern California have decided to file court papers supporting a U.S. judge's order for Apple Inc. to provide the FBI assistance in hacking a locked iPhone device. The iPhone device was believed to be the property of the suspect and is currently under custody of a terrorism investigation.
The Star reports that the Los Angeles-based attorney, Stephen Larson, has volunteered to represent several families of victims of the shootings, as well as other employees who were affected by the incident. According to Larson, the US attorney handling the case, Eileen Decker, has previously asked him for help. This has prompted him to file a brief in support of the Justice Department by March 3rd.
The lawyer shares that by providing assistance to the FBI, Apple can help answer the victims' 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 - things that are more of a personal victim" view.
George Velasco, a relative of one of the victims killed in the shooting, shares a family statement where they have a difficult time understanding why the smartphone manufacturer would "not jump at the opportunity" to provide assistance in uncovering what type of information will be unearthed from the device. Velasco shares that this is not an ordinary case, but an act of terrorism.
Reuters has previously reported that the U.S. Justice Department asked Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in California to order Apple to assist them in the investigation. They are requesting for Apple to create a specialized software where they could rapidly test random combinations to try unlocking the device and be able to view data stored inside. The smartphone, an iPhone 5C, was said to be owned by Syed Farook, one of the two suspects in the shooting.
The San Bernardino shooting occurred in December 2015, where Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, open fired at an office holiday party and took the lives of 14 Americans and seriously injuring several others. The couple then got involved in a gunfight against police officers before they were killed. Before they were killed, however, they destroyed their phones so that the feds wouldn't be able to recover any information from them.
Apple Inc.'s CEO Tim Cook sent a letter to employees that "it does not feel right" to refuse helping the FBI. However, Cook shares that in doing so, data security could be threatened for the millions of other Apple users, who had a risk of having the master key duplicated later and used against other users.
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