> Apple has in a number of cases objected to the Justice Department’s efforts to force its cooperation through a 1789 statute known as the All Writs Act

And the full (!) text of All Writs Act is just:

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

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"(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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Note it's not any law that regulates any form of encryption or communication security or what some company has to do to help some law enforcement procedures, a lot of laws with such topics were fought about, proposed, discussed and introduced through the years, like CALEA. This is just "we can demand anything we want."

The issue is, should this Act be allowed to be used in such contexts. A precedent can even make unnecessary the current process by which the laws are being made. Note there's nothing specific in that sentence from 1789. Who needs laws if anything goes?