The issue focused on the whether the government can enforce the order requiring that all phones be seized and placed under FBI control until investigations are completed, and whether the phone companies have done enough to find out who the user is.


The secret search began in late 2010 when the American Civil Liberties Union obtained an internal document that said the F.B.I. believed it had found a source for the San Bernardino attackers' phones in California, according to the documents released to the department by a federal judge this week.