The 2015 San Bernardino attack came as a complete shock to almost all the US citizens. The terrorist attack took 14 innocent lives while seriously injuring 22. The mass shooting took placed at San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training. A continuous legal rift ensued between the Supreme Court and the Apple Inc after the attack, pertinent to unlocking the iPhone of one of the shooters. The legal battle continued for a couple of months and finally, the granted the FBI to have access to the shooter’s iPhone.

Lately, the Supreme Court, pertinent to this legal battle (as it’s widely believed) has granted FBI permission to hack computers. As per the latest updates, the US congress is fighting this privilege awarded to the FBI by the Supreme Court and it has less than a year to thwart FBI from hacking into potential suspect’s computers. As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court has handed over the rights to the federal judges to issue hacking warrants to the FBI in case any suspect in US has used provision to hide their location online. Furthermore, the FBI is also provided with the rights to take over any computer which is already suspected to be handled by crackers. The latest law, underpinned by the name “rule 41” is set to be up for acceptance by the end of this year. As a matter of fact, the US Congress is scrambling to bring in more facts to block the Supreme Court’s move. As per the latest reports, the concerned authorities are planning to set up a bill to thwart the further progression of the “rule 41”.

Reportedly, search giant, Google and other advocacy groups are concerned about how this rule is going to affect their privacy policies across US and other countries; according to them the rule 41 could easily violate the international agreements. An information security director at Google did not hold back about their major concern that any such permission granted can easily lead to a situation where the government eventually surpasses the border to perform search outside US.

The expansion of this power granted by the Supreme Court still hangs in the balance as the congressional approval, which is yet to be proclaimed is the final word. While most of the masses are still unaware of what “rule 41” really is, it is believed that the rule will enjoy the limelight as another hot topic for discussion in the upcoming months.