Apple has won a pivotal clash over privacy rights, with a judge ruling that the company doesn't have to help unlock a drug dealer's iPhone.
For months, Apple has rebuffed US requests that it assist investigators seeking to crack into encrypted iPhones.
The battle burst into public after a judge this month ordered the company to aid prosecutors seeking access a terrorist's phone, but by then Apple had spent months in a Brooklyn court fighting over the drug dealer's device.
On Tuesday, Magistrate Judge James Orenstein said the government's demands on Apple in regards to the dealer's phone were impractical and excessive.
It would be absurd to posit that the authority the government sought was anything other than obnoxious to the law," Orenstein said in a 50-page opinion.
After helping prosecutors unlock at least 70 iPhones, Apple last year stopped co-operating and said the company would no longer serve as the government's helper.
The FBI wants Apple's help unlocking an iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who killed 14 people in San Bernardino in December.
The FBI believe Farook's phone could help solve the mystery of where he was for 18 minutes after the rampage.
Tuesday's decision, at a minimum, offers Apple a legal basis for defying the government in that case.
Should the issue reach the Supreme Court, Orenstein's opinion may inform the high court's decision.
A senior Apple executive, who spoke on the condition that he not be named, said during a call with reporters that Orenstein's decision would bode well for the company in the San Bernardino case, which has touched off a fierce national debate about the balance between fighting crime and preserving privacy in the digital age.
He said that the government's demands in the San Bernardino case, which include compelling Apple to alter its operating system, were even more far-reaching than in the NY case.
Source: Bloomberg and Reuters
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