U.S. Drops Legal Action Against Apple Over Encrypted iPhone

The U.S. Justice Department dropped a high-stakes legal fight against Apple on Monday, saying the government successfully accessed data stored on an encrypted iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. The government had insisted until last week it had no way to access the phone used by Rizwan Farook except to force Apple to write new software that would disable the password protection. The Justice Department obtained a court order last month directing Apple to create that software. But the technology company fought back, arguing the order was an overreach by the government and would undermine computer security for everyone. Apple declined immediate comment on Monday.