SAN FRANCISCO — The legal wrangling over a federal court order requiring Apple to help law enforcement break into an iPhone intensified Thursday, with the company filing its formal response and asking the court to drop its demand.

Other technology companies — Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Facebook and Yahoo — also moved to throw their weight behind Apple in court. The companies said they planned to file one or more briefs backing Apple next week in federal court in California.

The flurry of legal activity by the companies came as the F.B.I. also escalated the matter, calling on Congress to settle the question of when law enforcement should get access to citizens’ private data. Apple earlier this week had also asked for Congress to step in.

“The larger question isn’t going to be answered in the courts, and shouldn’t be,” James B. Comey Jr., the F.B.I. director, said in a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee earlier on Thursday. “It’s really about who do we want to be as a country and how do we want to govern ourselves.”