FBI: We may not need Apple’s help with that iPhone, but we didn’t lie about it

The government is pushing back against claims that it misled the public about needing Apple's help to break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino (CA) shooters. "We tried everything we could think of -- asked everybody we thought might be able to help inside and outside the government -- before bringing the litigation in San Bernardino," FBI Director James Comey said. He also wrote a letter responding to an editorial criticizing the government's handling of the case. "You are simply wrong to assert that the FBI and the Justice Department lied about our ability to access the San Bernardino killer’s phone," Director Comey said.

Instead, the attention to the case had spurred "creative people around the world to see what they might be able to do" to help the agency get around the phone's security features, he wrote. "Lots of folks have come to us with potential ideas -- it looks like we now have one that may work out. We're optimistic and we'll see," Director Comey said. On March 21, the Justice Department asked the court overseeing the dispute to delay a hearing set for the next day because an "outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method for unlocking" the iPhone in question over the weekend. The government asked for more time to explore if they would be able to use the technique to gain access to the device.