Some big names in law and computer science got together to file a “friend of the court” brief explaining the danger in forcing Apple to comply with the FBI-driven court order.

From the amicus brief:

in commanding Apple to create forensic software that would bypass iPhone security features, the Order endangers public safety. Amici, independent experts in iPhone security and encryption with backgrounds in government, industry, and academia, write to inform the Court of these real dangers. As experts, it is amici’s opinion that the dangers of forcing companies to denigrate the security of their products and of allowing law enforcement to commandeer consumer devices for surveillance purposes are too great.

For practical reasons, the security bypass this Court would order Apple to create almost certainly will be used on other iPhones in the future. This spread increases the risk that the forensic software will escape Apple’s control either through theft, embezzlement, or order of another court, including a foreign government. If that happens, the custom code could be used by criminals and governments to extract sensitive personal and business data from seized, lost, or stolen iPhones, or it could be reverse engineered, giving attackers a stepping stone on the path towards their goal of defeating Apple’s passcode security.

And:

Further, the Court here threatens to set a legal precedent that law enforcement will use to force companies to craft other security bypasses for forensic purposes.

Further, if the FBI succeeds in forcing a backdoor into Apple’s software, the bad guys will just use other encryption solutions to communicate. The FBI will have gained nothing long term, and we’ll all have given up our privacy.