"If Apple wants to be the official smartphone of terrorists and criminals, there will be a consequence."


Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery has told his employees to ditch their iPhones, they're not welcome anymore.

The County Attorney's office will no longer be providing their employees with iPhones, citing the company's recent refusal to cooperate with authorities over a locked phone of one of the alleged shooters from the San Bernadino shootings.

The email was sent out to all the staff on February 21st, and released to the public a few days later. Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook released a lengthy letter to Apple users regarding a judge's ruling attempting to force Apple to break into the terrorists phone. Cook stated that the government was over stepping its boundaries and if the company broke into the phone it could potentially put other user's phones at risk.

County Attorney Montgomery said that Apple's concerns over privacy were "a corporate PR stunt and ignored the 4th Amendment protections afforded by our Constitution." He notified employees that that his office would no longer be offering replacement iPhones or allowing current employees to upgrade to iPhones.

Of the 564 smartphones currently being used in his office, 366 are iPhones. Montgomery said that" if Apple wants to be the official smartphone of terrorists and criminals, there will be a consequence." Guess we found out what that consequence is in his office.

Read more at ABC15's website or at the Maricopa County Attorney's website.

More From KLAQ El Paso