The FBI’s underhand attempt to get a judge to order Apple to make iPhones less secure is largely backfiring. The Obama administration is now taking heat from all sides in the debate over whether they can force Apple to open a backdoor in its encryption – despite there being no law that requires it.

The FBI’s primary case against Apple was once considered about as sympathetic for the government as it gets: the original phone in question belonged to one of the deceased San Bernardino terrorists, and was owned by a city which had already given permission to break into it. But thankfully, the public now realizes that this case is about much more than just “one phone” (as the FBI once tried to pretend, before admitting that the case would set a precedent that would allow them to break into thousands of them).

What really is at stake is the future of internet security, and whether the government can force tech companies to become arms of the state.

The outpouring of legal support that Apple received in the San Bernardino case is almost unprecedented, with over 40 separate “friend of the court” briefs filed by a variety of actors, including the major tech companies, law professors, civil liberties groups, Black Lives Matter activists, iPhone security experts and even the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression.

Congress, which normally showers FBI director Jim Comey with praise, greeted him with an unexpected bipartisan grilling when he appeared before the House judiciary committee to discuss the issue earlier this month.

But it’s not just Congress that’s pushing back against the idea that the government should get backdoor access to consumer devices: a New York court has already strongly ruled against the justice department’s argument in a similar case. As the New York Times reported on Monday: “Many in the [Obama] administration have begun to suspect that the FBI and the Justice Department may have made a major strategic error by pushing the case into the public consciousness.”

As Reuters has previously detailed, officials from the commerce department, the state department and the White House’s own office of science and technology have all argued internally that the administration should be embracing encryption, not fighting against it.

But the intelligence community also seems to be on the side of better internet security. Defense secretary Ashton Carter made unusually forceful remarks about the importance of encryption in his recent visit to Silicon Valley and came out against any legislation that would weaken or ban it. “Several key NSA officials” also reportedly disagree with the FBI’s move to force Apple’s hand.

And Richard Clarke, counter-terrorism czar under Clinton and Bush, had a harsh message for the FBI in an NPR interview this week, claiming that the FBI and justice department are alone in this fight, and that virtually all other federal agencies recognize that the benefits encryption provide to cybersecurity far outweigh its potential drawbacks.

Meanwhile, every new poll that has come out has shown good news for Apple, even when the questions are framed in a light that is favorable to the government. The first poll that came out shortly after the dispute with the FBI became public showed that a solid 37% of the people favored Apple. When two polls that came out a few days afterwards – once it became clear that this dispute was much broader than just one phone – more of the public favored Apple than the government. This is a remarkable development, considering the government has framed this around a terrorism case.

Most importantly, far from scaring technology companies into potentially disrupting any plans to move forward on new products that use encryption, the public case may have only spurred them to accelerate their plans to double down on it. Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly told colleagues he has no plans to back down and the company will continue to work towards encrypting everything stored on all Apple devices – including iCloud, where millions of people back up their devices.

In addition, Facebook, Google and Snapchat are all reportedly exploring more ways they can more strongly encrypt the communications of their customers, as reported by the Guardian’s Danny Yadron on Monday. Even Amazon, which planned to remove encryption on its Fire devices, was hit with a strong public backlash when the decision was announced last week. The company has since reversed course, telling customers they will be able to fully encrypt their devices again in the spring.

Make no mistake: the FBI is not going to give up easily in this fight. The justice department has brought at least 12 other cases around the country asking for similar measures, and they are reportedly thinking about going after Facebook’s WhatsApp – which uses end-to-end encryption for texts messages and phone calls – next.

But it is heartening to see that the public has a much better understanding of the consequences to our privacy and security than the FBI bargained for.