Apple should stand its ground.

Following the San Bernadino shooting a few weeks ago, the FBI bungled the investigation of the shooter’s telephone and now wants the court to compel Apple to crack it open so that their investigation can continue. Apple is refusing as they should. This is an important over reach of the government that anyone with common sense should oppose.

First, don’t believe what the FBI is telling the press. They say it is only for this one phone and it is only five lines of code. Those two statements are contradictory. If it is only five lines of code that need to be written, then either that five lines of code can be reused or edited to work with every other phone. Even if all 5 lines had to be completely rewritten, it’s still just 5 lines! Of course it could be repeated if required and it would be required over and over.

The new iPhone will have tactile buttons and come in new colors. Security may or may not be included.

Second, Apple has built a phone that offers security to a market that requires it. The government is asking Apple to make the phone do something contrary to this required feature. This is akin to the government subpoenaing Tesla to make straight gasoline powered cars or Boeing to make planes that don’t fly.

Third, it is a dangerous precedent. Once these 5 lines are written for this project, then there are going to be 5 for another project, 50 for the one after that, and more and larger projects to follow – at Apple’s expense. There is nothing to stop the subpoenas once the gate has been opened. Eventually Apple may need to create an entire department to do the FBI’s job for them. In fact, every tech firm may suffer the same expensive requirement.

This is not Apple’s problem and their involvement increases expenses, reduces the value of their brand, weakens important features, and increases the risk that a government – out of their control – will subpoena additional potentially crushing exercises in the future. Instead, the FBI, DOJ, and NSA need to learn how to do their own jobs. We’ve been hearing things about the awesome power of the Government’s computer black ops for years. Assuming that wasn’t a ruse, I am pretty sure they can solve this problem.

Now, you geeky guy over there with the glasses. Go back to your desk, do your job, and stop bothering Tim Cooke. He’s a busy man, and probably working on some new wearable piece of technology that no one wants. Leave him alone.