Former DOJ Lawyer Is Apple’s “Secret Weapon” Against FBI

As Apple prepares for what could be a prolonged legal battle over the data security of its devices and their users, the firm knew to turn to Marc Zwillinger, a former Justice Department lawyer turned Silicon Valley privacy advocate. In his former government role, Zwillinger set up wire-taps. Now, as founder and managing partner of ZwillGen, he is one of the go-to lawyers to fight off federal surveillance orders. He has helped Yahoo go up against the intelligence community in a secret court; counseled Facebook’s Whatsapp on its police dealings; and now turns to establishing Apple’s legal strategy in refusing to build software to hack into a terrorist’s iPhone. “One of the problems with the type of authority that the government is seeking is that it’s hard to draw the line where it stops,” Zwillinger told a U.S. magistrate judge in an October hearing concerning a different locked phone. “Would it stop at unlocking?”