Apple receives so many police demands to decrypt seized iPhones that it has cre­ated a “wait­ing list” to han­dle the del­uge of requests, CNET has learned.

Court doc­u­ments show that fed­eral agents were so stymied by the encrypted iPhone 4S of a Ken­tucky man accused of dis­trib­ut­ing crack cocaine that they turned to Apple for decryp­tion help last year.

An agent at the ATF, the fed­eral Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo­sives, “con­tacted Apple to obtain assis­tance in unlock­ing the device,” U.S. Dis­trict Judge Karen Cald­well wrote in a recent opin­ion. But, she wrote, the ATF was “placed on a wait­ing list by the company.”

A search war­rant affi­davit pre­pared by ATF agent Rob May­nard says that, for nearly three months last sum­mer, he “attempted to locate a local, state, or fed­eral law enforce­ment agency with the foren­sic capa­bil­i­ties to unlock” an iPhone 4S. But after each police agency responded by say­ing they “did not have the foren­sic capa­bil­ity,” May­nard resorted to ask­ing Cupertino.

Because the wait­ing list had grown so long, there would be at least a 7-week delay, May­nard says he was told by Joann Chang, a legal spe­cial­ist in Apple’s lit­i­ga­tion group. It’s unclear how long the process took, but it appears to have been at least four months.

A few thoughts:

1. Apple is required by law to coop­er­ate with law enforce­ment if served with a war­rant for access­ing data.
2. Either Apple has as yet unknown abil­ity to crack the encryp­tion on iOS devices (either through hav­ing a built-in back­door or through a secu­rity hole).
3. In both cases Apple is leav­ing cus­tomers open to being attacked by these same means by hackers.
4. How many iOS devices have been seized by law enforce­ment and are wait­ing to have their data retrieved by law enforce­ment if there is a 7 week delay?

Update: Apple is more likely not using a back­door but sim­ply brute forc­ing the encryp­tion, in which case the 7 week delay seems more rea­son­able as well.