Sources: Data from San Bernardino phone has helped in probe

CNN:

Hacking the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone has produced data the FBI didn’t have before and has helped the investigators answer some remaining questions in the ongoing probe, U.S. law enforcement officials say.

Investigators are now more confident that terrorist Syed Farook didn’t make contact with another plotter during an 18-minute gap that the FBI said was missing from their time line of the attackers’ whereabouts after the mass shooting, the officials said. The phone has helped investigators address lingering concern that the two may have help, perhaps from friends and family, the officials said.

The phone didn’t contain evidence of contacts with other ISIS supporters or the use of encrypted communications during the period the FBI was concerned about. The FBI views that information as valuable to the probe, possibilities it couldn’t discount without getting into the phone, the officials said.

A question many outside security experts will ask is, what took the FBI so long? Supposedly, the phone had been unlocked a couple of weeks ago.