Rally Planned at San Francisco Apple Store in Protest of FBI Order to Unlock iPhone

Thirty people gathered in front of the same store on Wednesday to tell the feds to "keep your hands and your eyes off my iPhone."

Apple supporters plan to rally on Tuesday in front of the Apple store in downtown San Francisco in support of the company's decision to appeal a federal magistrate's order to help the FBI hack into an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in the December attack in San Bernardino.

Nonprofit Internet rights organization Fight for the Future has organized the event, which will be taking place at Apple stores across the country.

Thirty people rallied in front of the same San Francisco store on Wednesday to tell the FBI to "keep your hands and your eyes off my iPhone."

"I don't think it's worth compromising hundreds of millions of iPhone users around the world just to extract the data from this one phone," said Jacob Hoffman-Andrews of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group based in San Francisco.

Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook responded to the order on Wednesday with a letter to customers stating that complying with the order would have broad implications for the digital privacy of millions of users as well as for national security at large.

"In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession," Cook wrote. "The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a back door. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control."

In a new motion Friday, federal prosecutors say the company has chosen to repudiate a judge's order instead of following it.

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