The New York Times has an op-ed Tuesday by William J.
Bratton and John J. Miller, “Why Apple should unlock an iPhone”. There is a sub-sidebar, “Companies need to be
accountable for more than just sales.”
Online, the title is more nebulous, “Seeking iPhone data, through thefront door”.
Logically, those who favor the “national security”
view point out that Apple (nor any other similar company like Motorola, Google,
or Microsoft) need put a decrypting tool on the phone. It would sound plausible to put the
decryption tools in some sort of special “Cheyenne Mountain” law enforcement
facility with military or FBI supervision (although hackers have previously
compromised even these). Maybe, to the
horror of fans of Snowden, Greenwald and Poitras (counting me), that securing agency
would be the NSA itself, near Baltimore, or a new facility in Utah.
But I do take seriously the idea that, in the future,
a particular phone could have data, not just about a planned rifle attack, but
maybe about something “particularly dangerous” like a dirty bomb or EMP device
(which, contrary to popular belief, need not necessarily be nuclear). So, as libertarian-leaning Rand Paul once said, “get a warrant.” And in this case, the FBI certainly did.
Update: February 24
In an exclusive update by David Muir of ABC of Apple's Tim Cook, the Apple CEO said that creating even a secluded back door (or "front door") would be creating the "software equivalent of cancer." He also indicated that the FBI did not handle the phone properly right after recovering it.
Update: February 25
Ellen Nakashima and Todd Frankel report that Apple is making the next generation of iPhones even more unhackable, even after the fact by law enforcement.
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