If Apple aids terrorists and the FBI is Big Brother—who do we root for?

Enlarge / The FBI wants Apple to shut down the retry limits on the San Bernardino shooter's work phone. Both sides have attempted to claim the moral high ground. (credit: John Karakatsanis)

There's been a lot of bluster about the ongoing encryption saga between the FBI and Apple. "So Apple recently joined ISIS," The Daily Show's Trevor Noah joked this week. CIA Director John Brennan's view was a tad more serious. "What would people say if a bank had a safe deposit box that individuals could use, access, and store things, but the government was not able to have any access to those environments?" he told NPR's Morning Edition. "Criminals, terrorists, whatever could use it. What is it about electronic communications that makes it unique in terms of it not being allowed to be accessed by the government when the law, the courts say the government should have access?"

Let's start with the facts. Apple is currently fighting a court order obtained by the FBI. The FBI wants Apple to build software to help bypass security software on a specific iPhone 5C. The FBI is trying to unlock this device—a phone provided by San Bernardino County to employee Syed Farook, the man who with his wife shot 36 people and killed 14—but it's obstructed by the phone's security feature, which might delete the contents of the phone after 10 failed attempts to guess the PIN passcode. For now, Apple is resisting this court order that asks the company to write code that would block the auto-delete feature and allow the FBI to "brute-force" the passcode.

Beyond the facts are various arguments about things like the limits of government power or the legal authority of law enforcement to gain access to evidence believed to be related to what has been labeled a terrorist act. Those questions will be resolved by the courts eventually. But both the FBI and Apple have tried to take the high ground in different ways within the court of public opinion—the FBI emphasizes the moral imperative of honoring the victims and fighting terrorism, while Apple proclaims an ethical duty it has to protect the privacy and security of millions of iPhone users worldwide.

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