Richard Clarke, a counterterrorism expert connected with the National Coordination for Security believes that the FBI is hiding its real motives why it wants Apple to hack its own iPhone.
Clarke, a former White House official served at the NCSIPC for some time during his 30 year stint as a counter-terrorism expert.
He revealed in an interview with David Greene, NPR host of the "Morning Edition" that the FBI could have asked the National Security Agency to open the encrypted iPhone that is owned by Rizwan Farook, the suspected San Bernardino shooter and the device's encryption code will be broken.
Instead, the FBI opted to go to court to force Apple to break its own encryption code which the tech giant said was both dangerous and unconstitutional. Clarke believes that FBI's intention is not just simply to open the iPhone since if that's the only thing it wants, it could have just asked the NSA to break the encryption code open.
"Every expert I know believes the NSA could crack this phone," said Clarke in the interview. "[The FBI and the Department of Justice] want the precedent that the government can compel a computer device manufacturer to allow [them] in," he added.
If this case goes up to the Supreme Court and FBI wins, it could set up a legal precedent which would enable the agency to ask for the same services from other tech companies in the future.
On the other hand, another report also hinted that Apple might also have some ulterior motives in taking this type of defensive stance against the FBI.
This report suggested that most of the media have mistaken this case to be simply about phone encryption since Apple has framed the discussion in this light.
The report said that in reality, the FBI is only asking the Cupertino-based company to help create a unique iOS firmware for just one iPhone 5c which will disable the forced-wiping system after 10 wrong entries, and also alter the timeout delay between entries.
