No, no, no, no, HELL NO!
I wrote they obtained the data via the NSA’s or perhaps their own illegal monitoring of the CONTENT of the transmitted data within the USofA, they can only legally collect metadata in the US, that is to say, when the calls were made from which number to which number and how long the calls lasted, when a text was sent out and to whom, when a web site was visited, but not the contents of files up or downloaded.
The NSA cannot do this in America any more that the CIA can spy on Americans in America.
The FBI needed Apple to unlock to phone to have a plausible LEGAL explanation as to where they got the data they already had obtained by illicit means.
Is this really a hard concept?
If they just took illegally acquired data into court, the court would have no choice but to discard ‘the fruit of a poisonous tree’.
With a story that they got the data off the phone Apple cracked they could get away with it.
Otherwise, how would they explain away the provenience of all that damning data?
Was that a little more clear or would another reading of what I actually said in light of this clarify matters?
I bet the British collect everything from the US, and we do the same to them. Then the info is traded, to get around any laws about domestically doing it.
Freegards
Oh, I’m sorry. I did not realize that you were basing your claim of the FBI illegally obtaining the phone data on a wild assed conspiracy theory (without ANY evidence) that they had it before even going to court to legally ask for Apple’s assistance. All that wasted expense and time, only to get what they already had. If you had opened your comment #35 with your conspiracy theory claim, I would have just ignored it and scrolled down to the next comment… Sorry to bother you…