US Lawmakers Press Secretive UK Court Over Apple Encryption Case

The bipartisan pair made the demand in a letter shared with The Guardian before it was sent on Friday to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, or IPT.

The dispute dates to January 2025, when the Home Office served Apple with a technical capability notice under the Investigatory Powers Act, which requires companies to assist law enforcement in providing evidence. The UK government demanded that Apple provide a mechanism to access encrypted iCloud backups worldwide, The Guardian reported.

Apple responded the following month by withdrawing its Advanced Data Protection encryption feature from UK users. Apple's challenge to that order at the IPT was later thrown out after the Home Office withdrew the original notice and issued a narrower one that targeted only British users' data.

In the letter, Wyden and Davidson wrote that it is 'wholly inappropriate for a foreign executive body to attempt to dictate the distribution of powers within the US government.' They added that the UK should not be permitted to use secrecy directives under the Investigatory Powers Act 'to frustrate Article I powers under the US Constitution.'

The two lawmakers wrote that Congress 'is not only a co-equal branch of government, it is the First Branch,' and argued that no government can be allowed to place 'its demands beyond the reach of legislative inquiry.'

'The UK government,' they wrote, 'cannot champion legislative oversight at home while using administrative gag orders to kneecap the constitutional authority of the US Congress.'