Right. I'm sure you believe that, Perry Mason.Pray tell, on what basis was the FBI going to lose this case?
We can't know for sure how a particular judge might have ruled, and the Supreme Court unfortunately hasn't provided a great deal of clarity when it comes to when the All Writs Act can be applied. The best guidance we have probably still comes from U.S. v New York Telephone.
That said, the government was quite likely to lose. To answer your question: Among other possible bases, on the basis that what the government wanted Apple to do would represent an unreasonable burden. Ultimately the order was effectively vacated on the basis that the government failed to meet the necessity requirement, so we'll never know for sure whether this particular judge would have found in Apple's favor on the unreasonable burden question.
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An ex parte order like this one on behalf of the government? Fairly easy.
It's based not on the judge finding for one side or the other in an adversarial proceeding, but rather on only one side telling the judge what it wants. So long as what the government says is reasonable on its face, the order that the government asks for (and often frames itself) is likely to be grant. That's why such an order isn't really enforceable until the other party - the party that wasn't involved in the proceeding - gets to make its case why the order shouldn't be issued, i.e. why the government shouldn't get what it wants. It's why this particular order invited Apple to contest the order if Apple thought it wasn't lawful, which is what Apple did. The judge understood that she was only getting one side of the story, so to speak, and that the order might not be proper. But standard procedure is to issue the order and then let the affected party challenge it if they wish to.
We aren't talking about a party just being asked to comply with a warrant. Apple cooperated and turned over what it had access to. A third party turning over information - e.g., phone records - pursuant to a warrant (or just a subpoena) is one thing. It's another thing entirely for an innocent third party to be forced to do some work - e.g., to create some new product or do some in-depth analysis of data that the government has - for the government. The All Writs Act allows for that under certain circumstances, but it isn't a blank check that allows the government to force third parties to do whatever it wants whenever it feels that is necessary for it to do its own job.
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