Should Apple Comply with the FBI?
No.
If you haven’t heard, the FBI and Apple are battling over whether or not Apple must help the FBI hack into an iPhone. A court in California ordered Apple to help the FBI bypass the phone’s encryption, and Apple has refused.
To catch up on the full back story and what’s happened (as of March 6), read this article.
In my opinion, this is a dangerous overstep by the government. Apple should NOT be forced to comply.
The FBI isn’t simply asking for Apple to hand over data. They’re demanding that Apple create new software that doesn’t currently exist in order to bypass their own security measures.
In other words, the government is ordering a private company to do specific work. And, courts have held that software code is actually considered “speech,” so the government is ordering that private company to “speak” a certain way, in violation of the First Amendment.
This case really isn’t about search and seizure. The phone was lawfully seized by the police, and the actual owner of the phone (San Bernadino County) is cooperating with the FBI’s attempts to hack it.
What do you think? Should the government be able to force Apple to bypass its own security by creating new software?
Photo credit: iPhone 5C
