Earlier this week, the U.S. government dropped a bombshell in its ongoing crusade against strong encryption: A court order demanding that Apple help the Federal Bureau of Investigation bypass the security features of an iPhone recovered from Syed Rizwan Farook, who, along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people last December during a mass-shooting in San Bernardino, California.

National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden called it the “the most important tech case in a decade,” and in many ways he’s absolutely right. Apple has been on the front lines of the tech privacy fight ever since it improved the security of its devices such that no one, not even the company itself, would be technically capable of accessing their stored data. Now, facing a standstill in Congress, the U.S. government has ordered the company to build a custom version of the iOS operating system that would disable the iPhone’s security features, allowing FBI investigators to crack the passcode protecting the device by trying every possible combination — a method known as “brute force.”

The order is unprecedented. At stake is whether the U.S. government can legally compel a company to create software that sabotages its own products in the name of fighting crime. In a scathing letter posted on Apple’s website, CEO Tim Cook announced the company’s intent to fight the order, saying it would set a “dangerous precedent” that would be ineffective against criminals and “would hurt only the well-meaning and law-abiding citizens who rely on companies like Apple to protect their data.”

What’s more, many details of the case cast doubt on the value or existence of data supposedly contained on the device. It suggests the government’s real goal is actually setting this dangerous precedent — not unlocking a dead criminal’s phone.

Evidence of this strategy can be found in the order itself — including in its legal justification, the All Writs Act, a law that was enacted 277 years ago. The Act broadly allows courts to compel individuals and companies to do pretty much anything, as long as it aids the execution of a court order and isn’t unreasonably burdensome. Needless to say, its invocation in a case dealing with advanced technology is bizarre and smacks of desperation to many legal scholars. As the CATO Institute’s privacy law expert Julian Sanchez puts it, “The FBI [...] is relying on an 18th-century law to grant it powers that our 21st Congress won’t.”

Secondly, the FBI’s assertion that the phone contains valuable evidence is at odds with the known facts of the case. The court order notes that Farook destroyed several other phones to hide evidence prior to the attack. It’s extremely doubtful he’d neglect to destroy the remaining phone if it had any evidence on it. Another reason to be skeptical: The device was actually owned by Farook’s employer, the San Bernardino county health department. Given the lengths he went to destroy evidence, it’s highly unlikely Farook would plan attacks using a company device, since it would be reasonable to assume his employer might be monitoring it. The phone was discovered by agents with the “Find My iPhone” feature turned on — a very strange setting to have activated on a device being used to coordinate terrorist plots.