WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senior Apple executives said on Friday that the right place to find a solution to the encryption debate was in the U.S. Congress, rebuffing the Justice Department’s successful pursuit of a court order to unlock an iPhone linked to one of the San Bernardino shooters.

The executives, speaking to reporters on a press call, said they were stunned that the request to write software code to disable the passcode protections on the phone was happening in the United States and not another country with lesser traditions of privacy and civil liberties.