“All for one and one for all” may have been the famous motto of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas père, but it could well apply to the top of the tech community this week with news that Apple is to get the support of its biggest tech rivals in its fight against the U.S. Government over iPhone security.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Google’s parent company Alphabet, Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp., were planning to file a joint motion supporting Apple in its court fight against the Justice Department.

A separate report from Buzzfeed states that Amazon.com, Inc. and Twitter, Inc. are also preparing amicus briefs, although it wasn’t clear if these would be separate filings or part of a joint effort.

If you’ve missed the story so far, this issue first came into the public spotlight last week when the Department of Justice (DoJ) demanded via court order that Apple, Inc. unlock an iPhone 5c used by the couple behind the San Bernardino terrorist attack, but worse still wanted Apple to build a permanent backdoor into all future versions of its iOS operating system.

It since emerged that the request was not a one-off and that the DoJ had demanded Apple unlock at least a dozen phones from October last year on models ranging from the iPhone 3 through to an iPhone 6 Plus, as well as an iPad 2.

Apple’s fighting response has instead been a plan to double-down on security in iOS, making it even harder than it is now to gain access to the phone, indeed as we explained Wednesday the new measure would make the phones impossible to crack.

Motion to dismiss

While the news that their rivals would support its court case was welcome news, Apple was not resting on its laurels and filed a motion on Thursday to vacate the order compelling it to create software that would allow FBI agents access to the iPhone used in the San Bernardino, terrorist attacks, according to CNBC.

“No court has ever granted the government power to force companies like Apple to weaken its security systems to facilitate the government’s access to private individuals’ information,” Apple said in a release.

Interestingly Apple is fighting the order on two grounds: the First Amendment, based on the argument that being forced to write code that reflected the Government’s opinion of privacy constitutes a violation of its free speech rights; and on the Fifth Amendment, arguing the ruling causes Apple a deprivation of liberty as “it would conscript Apple to develop software that undermines the security mechanisms of its own products.”

The court case continues.

Image credit: a_t_ljungberg/Flickr/CC by 2.0