The National Security Agency didn’t assist the FBI with unlocking the Apple iPhone at the center of the investigation of December’s mass shooting in San Bernardino because the intelligence agency lacked the ability, its deputy director said Friday.
Speaking at an event in D.C.’s Newseum, NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett told attendees that the agency hadn’t acquired a way of hacking the particular iPhone model in question when the bureau’s inability to unlock the device ignited a national debate about privacy and security, The Intercept reported.
Although the NSA routinely penetrates and infiltrates the networks of adversaries for purposes of intelligence gathering, the agency doesn’t have an endless supply for exploits for each and every device, Mr. Ledgett suggested.
“We don’t do every phone, every variation of phone,” Mr. Ledgett said, The Intercept reported. “If we don’t have a bad guy who’s using it, we don’t do that.”
Following the Dec. 2 mass shooting in southern California, the FBI took Apple to court when its investigators were unable to access the contents of an iPhone recovered from slain suspect Syed Farook. The FBI ultimately relented after obtaining the services of an unidentified third party, but not before inquiring far and wide within the federal government.
“We’ve talked to anybody who will talk to us about it,” FBI Director James Comey told Congress when he testified in March amid the impasse.
Federal prosecutors initially argued in court documents that Apple had the “exclusive technical means” of cracking an iPhone 5c running the company’s iOS 9 operation system. At the time, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden called the FBI’s claims “horse—-.”
The FBI announced in April it had unlocked the phone, but hasn’t publicly discussed the contents of the device.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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