“I don’t buy your position that they would need to know any particular timeline.”
Well, it seem like they would have some sort of vague idea of how long it would take to grind Apple down in court, right? Years, months, days, or whatever, right?
Why do it unless you had no idea this other company could actually get it done faster? So you are saying they didn’t realize it was possible to do so fast or what?
Look, I am no expert in this case. I like that Apple fought this. I just think the how it played out in public doesn’t seem to make sense.
Freegards
No grinding down. According to every legal scholar who looked at it, Apple's legal position was far better than the FBI/DOJ's. The FBI was trying to use the All Writs Act in a novel fashion in a way it had never been used before, against all previous precedents and rulings, was requiring more than an unreasonable burden, and was actually being applied on a subject that Congress had taken action, prohibiting the requesting party from doing what it was seeking to do. Finally, it required the Courts to LEGISLATE a change in an existing law passed by Congress, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA), to allow this order to Apple to be applied.
One Federal Court in New York had already vacated just such an order. . . on those legal grounds.