The Justice Department used the All Writs Act (AWA) to justify a court order requiring Apple to break the encryption of an iPhone 5c owned by Syed Farook in last December's mass shooting in San Bernardino County. This 1789 law allows judges to issue court orders for individuals or companies to take actions even though the United States Congress has not passed laws for certain situations. However, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports that the US government has used the AWA in 63 federal cases since 2008 to access data in iOS or Android handsets.

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The majority of the cases involved Apple devices. ACLU attorney Eliza Sweren-Becker shares that most of the cases were also related to drug crimes, according to Ars Technica.

It is unclear how much help the tech giants provided federal prosecutors. Google claims it has never been requested to provide the same level of help as Apple in the San Bernardino case, by building a new OS to unlock the smartphone by bypassing encryption.

The federal government argues that it was using the original goal of the AWA. However, Apple and privacy advocates have argued that the government was abusing the law that was passed a century before the first commercially-successful light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison.

There has been only one court case in which a judge ruled that the AWA did not justify a tech company to hack a smartphone. It involved an iPhone and a Brooklyn drug case.  

Apple challenged the Justice Department's demand for help in the case, according to NBC News. A court filing in February showed that Apple had opposed many other requests by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for help in accessing data on iPhones and iPads.  

The ACLU's report follows the DOJ's statement on March 27, Monday that it was able to unlock the iPhone linked to the San Bernardino mass shooting. Thus, it planned to drop its case against Apple.

The feds reportedly sought third-party help from an Israeli security firm to hack the iPhone 5c. An Israeli newspaper had reported that Cellebrite's data forensics team was involved in the Apple v FBI case, but the company has not confirmed the report. 

Here's a video about FBI dropping its case against Apple: