Apple gives data to the United States government on over 70,000 user accounts per year without a warrant.
Anything Apple knows, the FBI can know, without probable cause.
Anything Apple knows, the FBI can know, without probable cause.
Or has something changed since the last time I requested user data from a tech company by subpoena? Or are you talking about intelligence collection as distinct from law enforcement?
Also worth noting that LE frequently has PC without having a warrant (for example: every time they ask a magistrate for a warrant and secure one, we can infer they had PC first). In fact they perform many searches with only PC (see: exigency, eventual discovery, etc).
It would be more apt to say any subscriber metadata Apple knows, the FBI can know without a warrant.
This was disclosed by Edward Snowden; the internal codename for such collection is PRISM.
The line between foreign intelligence collection and domestic law enforcement no longer exists. This is why parallel construction is so common today.
That LE has to feign the need for a warrant should the need arise to make lawfully admissible that which they already know and are in possession of is the most likely scenario. Encryption really is the only safeguard.
Per the Snowden slides, this (FAA702 collection) is the #1 most used collection method by US spies.
They can basically read approximately every camera roll and iMessage in the country with a few clicks.
All of the iMessage access data (either the iMessages themselves or the iMessage sync key for “Messages in iCloud”) is stored in the non-e2ee iCloud Backup.
This means that the iMessage service e2ee is meaningless because the iMessages themselves are not e2ee.
Note well that turning on iCloud e2ee is insufficient, as everyone else that you iMessage with will still have it off, and all of your iMessages will still be backed up non-e2ee to Apple in their device backups.
Having iCloud e2ee available is the best of both worlds for Apple: they can say that it’s available for privacy-conscious users to opt into, while still being able to turn over basically 100% of all iMessages to the feds whenever they ask.
I do understand the counterpart party problem, it is not someone can control. Sent once, it's free to be seen by anyone.
With an actual warrant or wiretap order, there is no guarantee that Apple can't or won't insert additional endpoint keys into the conversation.
But, that said, 99.9%+ of users don't have e2ee enabled for iCloud Backup, so the e2ee in iMessage is mostly irrelevant, and it's available in full to the feds at any time, no warrant required.
tl;dr: use Signal.