SAN FRANCISCO: Apple fired anew on Tuesday at the US government’s legal fight to force it to break into an attacker’s iPhone, saying the tactic would “appall” the country’s founders.

Apple dug into its legal position in a written filing ahead of a hearing set for March 22 before a federal judge in Southern California.

Apple stuck to its argument that the FBI was overstepping legal bounds by using an All Writs Act to compel the company to help break an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the December terror attack in San Bernardino, California.

“The government attempts to rewrite history by portraying the Act as an all-powerful magic wand rather than the limited procedural tool it is,” Apple attorneys said in a filing that responded to one submitted to the court a week earlier by the Justice Department.

“Thus, according to the government, short of kidnapping or breaking an express law, the courts can order private parties to do virtually anything the Justice Department and FBI can dream up.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2016