Apple reject U.S order to unlock its encrypted iPhone software to find terrorist

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Apple computers is resisting a U.S. government order to unlock its encrypted iPhone software to help the FBI examine a phone used by the militants who killed 14 people in a terrorist-style attack in California in December.

Apple's chief executive officer, Tim Cook, posted an open letter to the company's millions of customers Wednesday declaring the firm would challenge a court's order to devise new software that can defeat Apple's own security measures.  The government's move is unprecedented and an "overreach," Cook said, and it has "chilling" implications for citizens' personal privacy.

"The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers - including tens of millions of American citizens - from sophisticated hackers and cyber criminals," Cook said.  "The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone ... would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe."

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama views the encryption issue as "an important national priority," and fully supports the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice in their request to Apple.

Cook said Apple has no sympathy for terrorists and was outraged by the attack carried out in San Bernardino, California, last year by American-born Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, a native of Pakistan.  Apple has given the Federal Bureau of Investigation any relevant data it possesses, complied with all legal subpoenas and search warrants, and has offered its engineers' advice to federal investigators, he added.