"Actually, no. You are wrong."

The Government has the right (and, the obligation(!) ...) to perform certain duties such as the investigation of crime, with the inarguable public purpose of bringing the offenders to Justice. Like it or not, that does enable them to require certain reasonable things from you, such as (specifically ...) providing certain information and/or access to certain tools that "only you, specifically," otherwise would possess.

Why can they require this? Simply because their appointed public duty trumps(!) your "Libertarian squirming to the contrary." The Public has a right to have the crime solved ...and especially, to protect itself against re-occurrence of the same horror. The FBI is the agency appointed by said Public to implement this protection.

If the Government, having determined that "your office" is in possession of "data," and(!) having obtained from the Court a search warrant specifically seeking that "data," then ... n-o, neither you nor your employees may oblige them to ... as you say ... "dumpster-dive for it."

If you seriously attempt to do such a thing, then please do not pretend to be shocked when you spend a weekend (or more?) in jail for "obstruction of justice."

If I do not have those tools, the government does not have the power to compel me to create them. No, I won't be spending any time in jail over this. Neither will anyone at Apple. Neither would anyone working for the safe manufacturer I mentioned who makes safes that allow the user to change the combination. The government can issue a search warrant to see whether I do, in fact, have those tools, and require me to give them over to the government. But, it cannot compel me to act as an agent of the government by creating such tools.

I understand that you have a strong personal belief about this case. But this is not about your religion. This is about the facts of the case and the powers of the government. The government does not have the power to compel you to create items that you do not wish to create in order to help them in the investigation of a crime that may or may not have anything to do with what the government wishes to compel you to do. To insist otherwise is to insist that the government has the power to force your company to make bombs, or bomb sniffing equipment, even though you are a conscientious objector and your company makes bread.

Although the Government cannot compel you to go into the house, obviously they would never ask you to do such a thing. What they can do is to compel you to give them the keys.

Once again, "a convenient over-simplification." The Government, at least initially, must presume that you are "presumed innocent,™" and that you therefore had no idea what was going on in the house. Having compelled you to provide them with the keys, they will take the investigation from there.

Assuming (of course, of course ...) that you are not in any way a party to the crime that they are now investigating, then the Government is entitled to ask you for reasonable participation. Which might "reasonably" be interpreted to mean, "that you should provide to them such data, that you, particularly, might be expected to possess," which is needed to facilitate their investigation.

For example, you might reasonably be expected required to provide "both keys and codes" to the FBI, just as you might also provide the same things to someone who needs to repossess the car from a deadbeat who can't keep up the payments . . .

Apple, in devising this particular software security system, might well have been pursuing the very-legitimate purpose of "really making sure that an airport-bathroom thief is really scroo-oo-ood." But that same "reasonable pursuit" does not ipso facto extend to: "the FBI, in pursuit of a lawful search warrant."

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... "your almighty civil liberties™ begin-and-end with "you-you-you™," but the FBI is investigating, and seeking to resolve: the cold-blooded murder of more than a dozen people.

"On behalf of 'the Public.'"

If you have neither the keys, nor the codes, on hand, then the government has no leverage with you. They cannot compel you to create the keys or the codes. The government cannot compel your company to create a group within your organization that will create the technology to find those keys or codes. The government cannot compel your company to open up the phone, take the memory chip off of the board and install it on a breadboard that the government can use to brute force the data.

In short, the government cannot force your company, or you, to perform any action on their behalf. They can force you to hand over the keys, but they cannot compel you to hand over the blueprints used to build the safe. They cannot force you to create any intellectual property that the government would wish that you would create. They can only compel you to give them what you already have. Full stop. There's really nothing left to be said.

And this is not about whether I'm a libertarian, or a liberal, or a conservative, or have some other political persuasion. This is about the powers of the government. There are some powers that our founding fathers Chose Not to give to the government. We would be unwise to give those powers to the government now, regardless of the case.

And, yes, I will fight the government for my civil rights. What scares me is when people view civil rights to be an inconvenience to be compromised at any opportunity. We know what that leads to, and it's not pretty. The government is not more trustworthy than the average person. In fact, by its acts and deeds, it has shown itself to be completely unworthy of our trust. One case in point is that the various governments passed child sexting laws that they promised us were designed to protect our kids. So, what do they use those laws for? They use them, far too often, to prosecute kids who send naughty pictures of themselves to their girlfriends or boyfriends.

There is nothing on the phone which will bring back the dead. In fact, it's highly unlikely that there is any useful information on the phone. The government is simply trying to use the emotional appeal of this case to expand its powers. We do not want to do that. And if you would put down your emotions long enough to engage the critical thinking part of you that I have seen so well displayed in the past, you would inevitably have to agree with me.

If one honestly thought that the information being sought truly was protected by an impenetrable code ... such as might well be the case with (say ...) a GPG-encrypted email message ... then I would yield to your premise without further comment. But, this is obviously not the case here.

Furthermore, "the privilege of Government to conduct 'lawful search and seizure,'" in pursuit of a lawfully-obtained search warrant, IMHO, does(!) pre-empt your own personal notions as to what is, or is not, "permissible," and instead obliges you to "render all reasonable assistance," whether you "personally" like it or not.

The Public™ wishes to rid itself of both the mystery and the potential future threat of a multiple-murder(er), and it has appointed its deputy, the FBI, towards that end. You, therefore, may not stand in its way. Your personal (as perceived by you ...) "right to personal privacy" does not, de facto, usurp The Public's interest.

"I don't give a sh*t whether-or-not this scum-bag is (or was) trying to hide behind a mechanical device that was intended to prevent an airport-bathroom event. He killed many people, and 'I, The Public™,' want closure." (I want to be sure that there are not many more people, known to this person, who are about to commit more murders.) You have no right to frustrate The Public.™

Only if the keys already exist, Sundial, only if the keys already exist.

Quakeboy02: "... but they cannot compel you to hand over the blueprints used to build the safe."

Sure they can. The blueprints exist.

And somebody please tell sundial that his -- or the public's -- psychological need for "closure" is irrelevant.

Well, it's relevant to him...

Yeah, I realized that after I posted it. I stand by the rest of it.

This level of emotionalism is precisely why your arguments don't hold water. Your rationality is compromised; you are not seeing the bigger picture.

Skip the ad hominem angle, please.

The premise put forth by Apple Computer, Inc. is that their iPhone security is somehow "impregnable." They were happy to conjure-up images of "the FBI(!)" hopelessly trying to "Name That Tune™ in less than 10 notes," just to preserve that illusion, and even to cart the whole thing before The Supreme Court ...

... until the FBI officially acknowledged that it was all nonsense.

"Believe it or not, 'law enforcement' (most of the time ) IMHO does Work For Us." While this position may be unpopular among Libertarians , IMHO it is nonetheless generally true. The law-enforcement agency in question is investigating a heinous multiple murder. Yes, Government can lawfully conduct "search and seizure," and, to those ends, can compel other people or companies (such as Apple) to comply. ("Given that you obviously must possess a tool that can extract data from a [dead ...] phone, we require you to extract such data from this one, in fulfillment of the attached Warrant.")

However: In my opinion, we don't need to be concerned about "the guv'mint" prying into our secret affairs without a warrant. That ought to be the least of our concerns. Rather, we should be gravely concerned about private companies assembling terribly-complete dossiers about millions of people by "data-mining" bits of information that they have assembled "because the people in question didn't realize that 'the room Entire Internet™ was bugged!'"

I'll probably regret asking this, sundial, but how is it obvious that Apple will have a tool to extract the data, when they have gone to such efforts to ensure that no-one, not even themselves, can get access to the data? In fact, they notify you that if you forget your password, after 10 tries the data will be irretrievably lost. I know that if I made such a claim about the data on a device I sold, I certainly wouldn't have a hidden back door into it. There is simply too much market share to be lost - as in Billions of Dollars - by breaking faith with that many customers.

And, today, we see that the FBI's insistence that "It's JUST for this one phone" was a lie, as they offer to use their new tool to help investigators in Arkansas retrieve data from the iPad and iPhone owned by a pair of teens in Arkansas who are accused of murder. NOTE: This is not a terrorism charge. It is for murder. It won't be long before this technology will be in general use in law enforcement without any concern for the nature of the crime. So much for government promises.

At some point, perhaps some judge will remember Chief Justice Rehnquist's comments about unwarranted searches of cars when the driver is pulled over for speeding. It was something along the lines of "Do you think that there will be something in the trunk that provides evidence for the speeding charge?"

"Howdy folks. I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

I never thought any different, though I was a bit surprised at the arrogance of doing this within DAYS of the cancelled iPhone hearing.

Oh, I doubt that Apple worries about losing market share. iPhone customers are powerfully loyal ... and with good reason.

Apple has built a system that protects your data very well from the most common use-case: a thief. But there has to be a way to service and repair the phone, to move data from one phone to another, and so on. Therefore, it stands to reason that the same data can be extracted and stored separately ... defeating any sort of "10 tries you're out" scenario. If you're the government...

FBI's recent actions -- withdrawing their legal action, and now offering to assist other law-enforcement agencies -- is tacit proof, to me, that this is (and always was) the case. As I said in the OP of this now-long thread, what Apple was saying never "rang true." "Thou doth protest too much."