[zedee]

And you know the government will not ask them to use this knowledge more often and for lesser cases how, exactly?

Exactly. One of Apple's biggest legal arguments in this case is that the feds' request that they create a new version of iOS (which would enable the phone to be unlocked using brute force techniques) creates an "unreasonable burden." As soon as Apple creates the version of iOS the feds are seeking here, you can bet that any time the feds want info from a locked phone in the future, they would run to court arguing that "we know for a fact that Apple possesses a software tool that would enable us to unlock this phone," and thus that there is no additional burden from requiring them to use the software again.

[HiTech RedNeck]

This would be justified in a war context, but it’s being treated in a crime context.

We still trust the government with war, but also expect it to call war, war. Don’t lie to us that this is crime fighting.

[zeugma]

Exactly. One of Apple's biggest legal arguments in this case is that the feds' request that they create a new version of iOS (which would enable the phone to be unlocked using brute force techniques) creates an "unreasonable burden." As soon as Apple creates the version of iOS the feds are seeking here, you can bet that any time the feds want info from a locked phone in the future, they would run to court arguing that "we know for a fact that Apple possesses a software tool that would enable us to unlock this phone," and thus that there is no additional burden from requiring them to use the software again.

Yup. Now, how hard do you think it will be for the feds to have some compliant judge to robo-sign every single request submitted? I figure it would take about 1 minute.