Market Watch:

Andrew Crocker, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which plans to file an amicus brief in support of Apple’s stance, believes that Apple has a strong case to keep fighting.

“(The feds are) doubling down on the idea that forcing Apple to write code is not burdensome, and relying on the Fricosu case (compelled decryption) as the best precedent, which is a weak precedent indeed,” Crocker said in an email.

In the 2011 case Crocker cites, the government seized a laptop from Ramona Fricosu, who was accused of fraudulent real estate transactions, and asked the court to compel Fricosu to enter her password or turn over a decrypted version of the data on her laptop. The attempt used the same so-called All Writs Act that the government is citing against Apple.

The EFF argued in its amicus brief for that case that the demand was contrary to the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution because it would force Fricosu to become a witness against herself. A federal court ruled in January 2012 that she could be forced to turn over an unencrypted version of the laptop’s hard drive. Fricosu later entered a plea agreement.

You’ll no doubt hear more about the Fricosu case as this current case goes to court.