It is said that the three biggest lies in the world are “I love you,” “The check’s in the mail,” and “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Now, it appears the U.S. government would like to add a fourth to the list, “We only want to access just this one iPhone.”
United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Thursday appeared on an episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, and discussed the legal fight between the U.S. government and Apple over an iPhone used by San bernardino terrorist Syed Farook.
Lynch said she has discussed at great length with Apple CEO Tim Cook the issues of privacy, and understands the sensitivity of the issue:
“Well, you know, we’ve disagreed publicly in court and I’ve had a number of great conversations with Tim Cook on issues of privacy. What I’ll say about this, though, is I understand why this is important to everybody, because privacy is an important issue for everyone. It’s important to me, as the Attorney General, it’s important to me as a citizen.”
When host Colbert mentioned Cook’s statements saying that unlocking Farook’s iPhone 5c by creating a “backdoor” into the device could create a “slippery slope” where privacy is concerned, Lynch maintained that the government is “not asking for a backdoor,” and that the court order as filed, is “very narrow.” She then took an approach to persuading Colbert, (and his viewers), that the situation was one that seems to this writer might actually be better handled as a customer request by AppleCare!:
“Well you know, first of all, we’re not asking for a backdoor, and nor are we asking for him to turn anything on to spy on anyone. We’re asking them to do what their customer wants. The real owner of the phone is the county, the employer of one of the terrorists who’s now dead. What we’re asking them to do is to help us disable the password erase function that basically wipes the phone if you guess the password wrong after ten times. We will try to get into the phone, we will extract the evidence under the court order that we have gotten that’s very narrow, it’s very focused.”
It appears this case will continue to be fought in the court of public opinion, until the actual March 22nd court date, where both sides will argue their cases before an actual judge. We’ll continue to deliver the ringside action as it happens, so stay tuned!
(Via TechCrunch)
