Apple hits at least three points in its defense of liberty from the FBI that should rally all of us to its side:
1) Privacy. The Feds have no business cracking our phones, regardless of the excuse they dream—or gin—up. (Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, isn’t as full-throated as my paraphrase; he’s a businessman, after all. But this case centers on the simple question of whether Our Rulers have absolute rights over us, including that of 24/7 surveillance.)
2) Enslavement. Can the Feds force a corporation to work for them? Can they compel a company to sabotage its own product? That’s the essence of the FBI’s demands on Apple to unlock Syed Farook’s iPhone (and since there’s likely little evidence on that phone, let alone any that could prevent another false-flag-sorry, terrorist attack this long after the tragedy in San Bernardino, we have yet more proof that the FBI is merely flexing its power, as usual).
3) Freedom of speech. Computer code is a form of speech (courts have so ruled, but anyone with a functioning brain-cell can understand this without help from gowned clowns). Forcing Apple to create code is as evil as compelling Lew Rockwell to write a column or Ron Paul to warble a tune. Nor does the use the State claims it will make of such coerced inventions matter.
You can stand with Apple against the FBI’s unspeakable despotism by signing this petition. I have no faith in such measures: petitions are a relic from America’s inglorious days as a democracy, when rulers pretended to listen to the mob. As Apple’s battle proves, we’ve forsaken democracy for full-blown dictatorship. But I signed anyway, and I urge you to do so as well. Someday, when historians study our era, we’ll want to be on record as opposing this unmitigated evil. Bonus: by signing, you also defy that louse in the White House, who’s “warned against taking an ‘absolutist’ position on encryption, saying that both [Apple and the FBI] need to make concessions.”
3:36 pm on March 17, 2016
