George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr has a typically thoughtful column today on the FBI's insistence that Apple unlock the older-model iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook. One point he makes that seems missing from most of the coverage is this:

There's a lot of public discussion about whether the order would require Apple to create a "backdoor" into the iPhone.  I think it's probably more accurate to say that this particular model phone, the iPhone 5C, has a built-in security weakness—depending on how you define the term, a kind of backdoor—already.  The government's order would require Apple to exploit the potential backdoor in Apple's design.  Importantly, though, Apple redesigned its phones after the iPhone 5C to close this potential backdoor.  Later phones, starting with the iPhone 5S, have apparently eliminated this potential way in.  As a result, the specifics of the order in the San Bernardino case probably only involve certain older iPhones.

Read the whole thing here.