Facebook's WhatsApp is reportedly being targeted by Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers due to problems with a wiretap order due to encryption. The feds are reportedly taking on the messaging app during an active case with Apple about unlocking the iPhone 5c of one of the terrorists in last December's San Bernardino shooting.     

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The New York Times (NYT) reported that last week Justice Department officials talked about the case in which a judge-ordered wiretap could not be conducted because of WhatsApp's encryption. However, unlike the Apple v. FBI case it is not related to acts of terrorism, according to Phone Arena.

The WhatsApp case is under seal so few details are known about the case between the feds and instant-messaging client.

United States senators are reportedly working on new legislation that would force companies to submit data requested to law enforcement. Some government officials think it is therefore a bad time for the WhatsApp case to make headline news, while others argue that it is time to update old-school wiretap laws that were written when land lines rather than mobile phones handled most calls.

 WhatsApp was involved in another similar case this month. The government asked for data on a WhatsApp user who was accused of drug trafficking.

 However, the company argued that it could not give information that it did not have. It resulted in a Facebook executive being jailed in Brazil.  

In 2014 WhatsApp added "end-to-end" encryption that limited the reading of a message to the receiver, which ended all messages being readable over WhatsApp's servers. An irony is that the US government indirectly helped to develop the encryption tech.

It provided $2.2 million for Open Whisper Systems that developed the encryption system used by WhatsApp. The tech was originally developed to allow people living in tyrannical countries to communicate without worrying about government spying.

In related news many tech companies recently filed a joint legal brief on March 3 to support Apple in its encryption fight with the DOJ, according to CNBC. They included Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon.  

The move was rare due to the companies competing with Apple in many areas. In their legal document the tech companies argued that Congress was basing its case on the All Writs Act (AWA) of 1789 that was written a century before Thomas Edison patended the first commercially successful light bulb.

Here's an explanation of end-to-end encryption: