After attempting to invoke the All Writs Act, the FBI just unlocked the San Bernardino shooter’s phone all by themselves:

The Justice Department is abandoning its bid to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack because investigators have found a way in without the tech giant’s assistance, prosecutors wrote in a court filing Monday.

In a three-sentence filing, prosecutors wrote that they had “now successfully accessed the data” stored on Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone and that they consequently no longer needed Apple’s court-ordered help getting in. The stunning move averts a courtroom showdown pitting Apple against the government — and privacy interests against security concerns — that many in the tech community had warned might set dangerous precedents.

I am going to put my tinfoil hat on here, and suggest that the FBI always knew that they could hack the phone.  It was probably only a call to Fort Meade away.

It took them just a few days once they realized that the court was not receptive to their demands and they were getting excoriated in the press.

 They were sandbagging the court and abusing legal process.