The Seeds Of Apple's Standoff With DOJ May Have Been Sown In Brooklyn

""What was remarkable was that the public hadn't seen the argument surfaced," saysJennifer Granick at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. She says Judge Orenstein was trying to stoke a public debate. "Judge Orenstein had concerns about whether the government's legal argument was a valid legal argument."

The judge seemed particularly skeptical that the government relied in part on an 18th-century law called the All Writs Act. Prosecutors say it gives them authority to compel private companies to help carry out search warrants."