If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Two senior Republican lawmakers are demanding answers from the British government about its secret order forcing Apple to break its own encryption. The UK has until March 11 to respond. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast sent a joint letter on Wednesday to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, pressing for a formal briefing on the Technical Capability Notice (TCN) served on Apple under the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act. We obtained a copy of the letter for you here. It’s the latest move in a surveillance fight that began over a year ago and has rattled the US-UK relationship at the highest levels. In January 2025, UK security officials secretly ordered Apple to build a backdoor into iCloud that would allow them to decrypt any user’s data, anywhere in the world. Not just suspected criminals, not just UK citizens. Everyone. The order targeted Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature, the optional end-to-end encryption that ensures even Apple can’t read iCloud backups. Apple’s response was to pull ADP from the UK market entirely in February 2025, stripping strong encryption options from roughly 35 million iPhone users rather than comply with a demand it couldn’t legally discuss. UK law makes it a criminal offense for companies to confirm or deny the existence of such orders, even to their own government. Apple couldn’t tell the US Department of Justice that the order existed. The DOJ couldn’t verify whether it complied with the CLOUD Act, the bilateral agreement governing how the two countries share access to digital evidence. That agreement explicitly states it “shall not create any obligation that providers be capable of decrypting data.” The UK’s order appears to do exactly that. The reaction in Washington was bipartisan. Senator Ron Wyden and Congressman Andy Biggs slammed the order as “effectively a foreign cyber attack waged through political means.” President Trump compared the UK’s conduct directly to China’s. Speaking to the Spectator after meeting Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump said: “We actually told [Starmer] . . . that’s incredible. That’s something, you know, that you hear about with China.” DNI Secretary Tulsi Gabbard called any attempt to compel Apple to create security weaknesses an “egregious violation” of privacy and confirmed legal and intelligence teams were assessing the implications. The pressure worked, partially. Gabbard announced in August, 2025, that Britain had backed down from its demand for access to data belonging to Americans. But British citizens are still at risk. A UK government spokesperson reaffirmed its commitment to cooperating with the US on security while also protecting civil liberties, stating: “We will always take all actions necessary at the domestic level to keep UK citizens safe.” The core demand, reshaped with a domestic focus, reportedly remained on the table. After the original order triggered backlash in Washington, the British government reissued the demand with a domestic focus, seemingly to avoid international fallout. The legal infrastructure that produced the original order hasn’t gone anywhere. In a telling sign of internal contradictions, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre quietly removed its own guidance advising users to enable Advanced Data Protection on iOS devices, without any public explanation. At the same time, the Home Office was pressuring Apple to undermine that very same encryption. Jordan and Mast first raised these concerns in May 2025 with then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. They received a response from Security Minister Dan Jarvis in June. The relevant details remained undisclosed. Their letter to Mahmood states plainly that they have “serious concerns that the actions of the UK are weakening the security, privacy, and constitutional rights of American citizens.” The UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled in April 2025 that “bare details” of Apple’s legal challenge could be made public. Justices Rabinder Singh and Jeremy Charles Johnson stated “[w]e do not accept that the revelation of the bare details of the case would be damaging to the public interest or prejudicial to national security.” What that ruling confirmed: a legal demand for backdoor access existed. Everything beyond that remains classified. The Committees are also citing the UK’s own Investigatory Powers Commissioner, who stated in his December 2025 annual report that “[w]e welcome the decision of the Tribunal to order that the bare facts of the case to be disclosed to the public as we consider it is vitally important for there to be a mature and informed public debate about lawful access capabilities.” Jordan and Mast quote it back directly at Mahmood: “For there to be a ‘mature and informed public debate,’ it is imperative that the Committees fully understand the actions taken by the UK government with respect to the TCN issued to Apple.” Their request is straightforward: a briefing before March 11, and permission for Apple to disclose TCN details “to the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure compliance with our bilateral agreement with the UK under the CLOUD Act.” A year of asking has produced a letter from a junior minister and classified silence. The Apple case is not an isolated incident. Under Starmer, arrests over social media posts have become common, police forces have expanded facial recognition with minimal oversight, and the government is advancing plans for a centralized digital identity system. The encryption fight is part of a pattern. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post US Republican Lawmakers Demand Answers on UK’s iCloud Encryption Backdoor Order appeared first on Reclaim The Net.