The attorney representing Apple in its battle with the FBI over helping with the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorism investigation said the demand could “destroy the iPhone as it exists.”

Ted Olson said on ABC’s “This Week” that Apple has cooperated with federal authorities but must “draw the line at recreating code, changing the iPhone.”

His comments come two days after federal authorities filed strongly worded court papers claiming that Apple appears more concerned with marketing strategy than national security.

Justice Department lawyers questioned Apple’s motivation for defying U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym’s order this week to help the FBI open Syed Rizwan Farook’s encrypted iPhone 5c.

Olson described the case as “an extremely important debate about privacy (and) civil liberties” but said Apple is concerned about protecting the privacy of iPhone users.

“This is a Pandora’s box,” Olson said of the order, noting it could be used to force Apple to unlock data in many other cases. “There is no limit into what the government could require Apple to do.”

Olson said the order could also help foreign governments get access to iPhone data. The government argued Friday that Apple CEO Tim Cook’s public Feb. 16 letter declaring, “We oppose this order,” should be taken as the company’s response.

Apple’s refusal, they wrote, “appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy,” not a legal rationale.

Apple technicians told investigators that they could write the software the FBI wants to unlock Farook’s phone, and technology providers previously have written code to comply with subpoenas and court orders, according to the filing.

“Apple rejected the government’s request, although it conceded that it had the technical ability to help,” the filing states. It also says Apple’s public statements have been misleading.

Pym gave Apple until Friday to respond, and set a hearing for March 22 in U.S. District Court in Riverside, Calif.

It’s unclear what help, if any, the contents of Farook’s phone might provide investigators. Nearly seven weeks of messages, texts, photos and data are missing — from Oct. 19, when Farook last uploaded his phone to iCloud, to Dec. 2, when he carried out the shootings at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.

No evidence has surfaced so far to indicate that Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were in contact with terrorists, or had received outside support, before the attack, in which 14 people died. Police killed the couple in a shootout.

Apple and its supporters say the dispute isn’t over the unknown contents of one phone, but about the government trying to establish a precedent that it can force a company to hack its customers’ devices.

That could open floodgates for requests from local, state and federal prosecutors, they say, and cripple customers’ confidence in Apple products, especially in lucrative overseas markets where distrust of government surveillance is higher.

Apple’s advocates fear that giving in to the FBI ultimately would help criminal hackers and authoritarian governments, which might use the software to trace secret communications of political opponents and human rights activists.

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©2016 Los Angeles Times