The Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday criticized Apple with the sharpest words yet over the firm’s refusal to help authorities unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, calling its legal arguments “corrosive” to American democracy.

In a rebuttal filed Thursday with a California federal court, the DOJ issued a scathing attack against Apple in the case involving an iPhone 5C used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife, Tafsheen Malik, killed 14 in San Bernardino, Calif. on Dec. 2, 2015, before they died in a shootout with police. The government has labeled the attack an act of terrorism.

“Apple’s rhetoric is not only false, but also corrosive of the very institutions that are best able to safeguard our liberty and our rights,” the government said in a filing to counter Apple’s objections to assisting the FBI in accessing the iPhone. “The government and the community need to know what is on the terrorist’s phone, and the government needs Apple’s assistance to find out.”

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here