The law is never clear. Just look at how unclear our legal system makes a very straightforward statement like "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Think of all the exceptions it has made to a very clear decree[1]. And think of the ways that this statement has been hijacked for use in topics like corporate personhood. No, the law is not clear. Not on this issue. Not on any issue, really.
"A telecommunications carrier shall not be responsible for decrypting, or ensuring the government’s ability to decrypt, any communication encrypted by a subscriber or customer, unless the encryption was provided by the carrier and the carrier possesses the information necessary to decrypt the communication."
That seems extremely straight forward and explicitly applicable to this case.
Exactly, i read through the same sentence. I mean i understand the ideology here, but the article is a clear lie. CALEA clearly states Apple needs to decrypt in this case, there is no two ways about it. The software section is there so that government cannot tell apple to install a backdoor API of governments choosing on the iphone. Government just says decrypt and apple complies, government cannot tell apple how exactly to comply. But if apple says not possible, well government goes and says it is possible, for example like this, and apple looses. I am surprised nobody linked to CALEA before.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...