"Here, Apple engineers are effectively being conscripted to build forensic software — a hacking app — for the FBI." "Instead of being asked to hand over its own information, Apple is being instructed to help hack into someone else’s — someone whose only connection to the company was owning a phone that Apple produced."

"That’s a particular stretch because (as Apple argues in another ongoing case) Congress has already passed a federal law outlining exactly what companies must do to help police spy on digital messages: the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1992." (1)

A "hacking OS" more precisely. Now compare what is being requested with the apparent legal basis for it:

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Writs_Act

"(a) The Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.

(b) An alternative writ or rule nisi may be issued by a justice or judge of a court which has jurisdiction."

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That's really the whole act!

Which FBI claims to simply mean "we can order anything to anybody" including ordering Apple to make "a special operating system," and then later, obviously, even the special chips to allow FBI to snoop continuously, if they want. It's not an accident.

Should this particular act be allowed to be used to effectively ban encryption? That's how much is at stake.

1) http://nypost.com/2016/02/18/will-an-18th-century-law-force-...