But authorities may have picked the wrong phone after all. It's becoming increasingly clear that law enforcement doesn't really think there's any important data on San Bernardino killer Syed Rizwan Farook's iPhone and that it has more precedent-setting value than investigative value.

"I'll be honest with you, I think that there is a reasonably good chance that there is nothing of any value on the phone," San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan told NPR reporter Steve Inskeep on Friday.

Consider that it was Farook's work phone, actually belonging to San Bernardino County, his employer. Farook also had and used two personal phones and a laptop, which he demolished before he and his wife left their home to shoot 14 people dead at an office holiday party.

Between Apple, Verizon, and the National Security Agency, which turned over metadata, the authorities had plenty of phone data, none of which indicated any overseas terror connection.