Where have you planted your feet on the Apple v. FBI debate?
I suspect I am in the majority camp, having changed sides — regardless of direction.
For days, the government actually has been pleading with the tech giant to unlock the iPhone of the Muslim terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook. With the aid of his handy wife, Tashfeen Malik, the couple slaughtered 14 and wounded 22 in San Bernardino 2½ months ago.
I started out in the camp of Apple CEO Tim Cook, virtuously opposing a potential invasion of my telephonic privacy.
Slightly closer inspection showed that Mr. Cook outrageously had exaggerated the threat to worldwide privacy. “This case is about more than a single phone,” he told all of God’s Little Apples.
It is nonexistent. Timothy Lee wrote on Vox.com that “Apple has tacitly admitted that it can modify the software on Farook’s iPhone (thus unlocking it) to give the FBI access without damaging the security of anyone else’s iPhone.”
Supporting a government sally into private-citizen territory is new terrain for me.
New York Post essayist John Crudele captured my position perfectly this morning:
“Farook and his wife…were blown away by the police before they could spill their password. So the FBI wants Apple to unlock the phone.
“Apple says it can’t, won’t, doesn’t want to and would rather not cooperate.”
“I like my privacy. But I also prefer not to be blown up, shot or otherwise have my body parts rearranged because some terrorists think it would be fun.”
