Apple Computer Quotes
Snowden, was a contract worker for Booz Allan assigned to the National Security Agency (NSA). He felt that some of the NSA activities were illegal and unethical and tried to complain to NSA officials who rebuffed him. Despite the fact that he had signed an agreement not to do so, he copied many critical, classified documents that exposed much of the NSA activities that the NSA officials had denied existed—including lying under oath to the Senate. He then made many of them public, violating his oath, breaking the law, and opening up an entire area of government spying which most Americans knew nothing about and about which senior government officials had lied under oath to Congress. They of course wanted to prosecute Snowden who had told the truth, while they had lied. For many Americans, this became a moral and ethical conundrum.
Gets was commenting on the Apple Computer Company who refused to obey a court order to create a program that would break into any iPhone. Apple thought the court order was not only bad public policy, but was not legal, so they refused and appealed to start the legal process. However, the FBI which had claimed that they had no other way to view some critical investigative data, found one, and not wanting the case to go to higher courts where they might or might not lose, the dropped the case, thus stopping the legal appeal as in the United States courts will hot hear theoretical cases as they will in some countries. Since apple was not in danger of being held in criminal contempt any longer the could not longer appeal.
The FBI obtained a court order requiring Aplle to write a program that would decrypt the cell phone of a terrorist mass murderer. If there were such a program, no one could be guaranteed the confidentality of his/her own personal files thus removing a means of maitining privacy that Americans and all others who bought the Apple iPhone. One of the main motivations for people in foreign coutnries to buy and Apple iPhone was to be able to keep their files secret from their governments. If Apples were tp develop such a program not only would Apple lose business and America lose jobs, but everone would lose a degree of privacy from government intrusion. Further, then China, Russia, Egypt and the other non-democratic goverments in the world would gain a major new tool with which they could repress their citizenry.
The FBI had obtained a court order requiring apple to write software that could hack into a person's iPhone. Apple, with most other hi-tech companies in support, filed a motion with the court opposing the order. The FBI shortly thereafter withdrew its request for the order saying that they had found other solutions, when they had originally told the court that there were no other solutions. The issue however was and remains a very difficult political, moral, ethical, and legal conundrum.
In one of the most colorful rationalizations of economic hard times, the President stated in the middle of the depression:
