An article from Bloomberg.com titled "Apple's Fight With U.S. Over Privacy Enters a New Round" details the U.S. government's fight to get the company’s help in getting data off a phone in Brooklyn, New York, that belonged to a drug dealer. The U.S. says it should get the help they want because Apple provided assistance in accessing such devices earlier. The request follows one previously made to Apple in hopes of accessing the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone. That request was dropped in March after the government found another way to hack the phone. FBI Director James Comey has called this battle the most difficult issue he has faced in government.
The U.S. government has been arguing for Apple's compliance on the basis of the All Writs Act of 1789. But does the 227 year old Act apply to iPhones? A Brooklyn judge called this assertion "obnoxious to the law." The Act authorizes courts to "issue all writs [written orders] necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law." But such an old Act couldn't have possibly predicted the kind of large-scale privacy issue that Apple is facing today.
Where do we draw the line in terms of Apple helping out? They've complied to stop a terrorist and a sexual abuser, but will they comply with these drug laws? What if the U.S. called on Apple to unlock the phone of, say, a teenage vandalist who may have spray-painted a building? When does the FBI have a right to impose on Apple's time and high-stakes privacy policy? I say high-stakes because Apple Inc. is the world's largest information technology company by revenue and the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization. Needless to say, maintaining the trust of their massive consumer base is important.
In our April 4 lecture on online privacy, we learned that people own private information and that revealing it can be risky. If Apple has to continuously hack in to phones and give their privacy to the government, they may be compromising the trust of their consumer base. From my view of the legal side, Apple owns its own private info first and foremost, and government writs cannot bypass that truth. Apple said the FBI is attempting to set a precedent to require it and other companies to work on the government’s behalf, which seems accurate. If Apple ends up compliant, it could create a snowball effect through this precedent, thereby allowing the government significantly more access to private information stored by a multitude of companies in the United States. Surely, that is an unsettling image of the future. Apple keeps its access and protection rules strict to avoid potential chilling effects. They do not want to experience the kind of boundary turbulence that could lose customers or make them less trustworthy of how Apple handles their private information. It is unclear whether or not the FBI / U.S. government will end up victorious in their fight against Apple, but if they do it could be bad for our privacy.
