By Ross Todd, From The Recorder

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors on Monday told a judge that investigators have successfully accessed data stored on an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.

The filing presumably brings to an end the legal showdown between the government and Apple Inc. over access to the work phone used by Sayed Rizwan Farook. An Apple spokesman didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The government on Monday asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym of the Central District of California to vacate an order she issued under the All Writs Act in February compelling the company to help investigators bypass security features on the phone.

In a statement, an Apple spokesman said the case “should never have been brought.”

“From the beginning, we objected to the FBI’s demand that Apple build a backdoor into the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and would set a dangerous precedent,” the company stated. “As a result of the government’s dismissal, neither of these occurred.”

Federal prosecutors and the company’s lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and ZwillGen had sparred in court filings over the past month in preparation for a March 22 hearing on the company’s motion to vacate Pym’s order. That hearing was called off this past Monday—less that 24 hours before it had been scheduled to take place—after prosecutors indicated that an unidentified third party had come forward to show the FBI “a possible method for unlocking” Farook’s work iPhone.

Monday’s filing indicates that the government had succeed in accessing the data and “therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple.”

IMAGE: Diego M. Radzinschi / National Law Journal

Read more: http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202753490245/Feds-Say-They-Have-Unlocked-iPhone#ixzz44KFS2Tyq