Repeating the same talking points over-and-over again, 55-year-old Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook has no leg to stand on, refusing to unlock the pass-code for San Beranrdino terrorist Sayed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 6. Killing 14 and injuring 24 with his Saudi wife Tashfeen Malik Dec. 2, 2015, the FBI can’t complete its investigation until it gets private information from Farook’s iPhone 6. Under remaining provisions of the Oct. 26, 2001 Patriot Act and its revision the June 1, 2015 U.S. Freedom Act, the U.S. government has the right to compromise privacy of anyone plotting or performing terrorist acts. Apple’s capable attorney, 75-year-old former Bush-43 Solicitor General Ted Olsen, whose wife Barbara died in the hijacked plane that hit the Pentagon Sept. 11, makes the same bogus arguments. Fighting the government over unlocking one terrorist’s iPhone 6 defies all logic.
If you listen to Cook or Olsen’s talking points, you’d conclude that the FBI wants to compromise the iPhone privacy of all global users. Nothing could be more preposterous. FBI officials seek only to unlock Farook’s iPhone 6 to get whatever data points to any co-conspirators, both foreign and domestic, leading up to the Dec. 2, 2015 San Bernardino massacre. Saying the FBI “can’t look the survivors in the eye, ourselves in the mirror, if we don’t follow this lead,” said Comey, made the most feeble argument why Apple should unlock Farook’s iPhoine. Under the U.S. Freedom Act, law enforcement agencies have a right to access any electronic data involved in planning or committing terrorist acts. “We have no tolerance or sympathy for terrorists,” Cook wrote to unsuspecting Apple employees, refusing to unlock Farook’s iPhone because it sets a “dangerous precedent.”
Because Cook and his hired gun Olsen keep repeating the same nonsense, it doesn’t mean that it has any merit. “Apple is a uniquely American company,” said Cook. “It doesn’t feel right to be on the opposite side of the government in a case centering on the freedoms and liberties that government is meant to protect,” said Cook, mixing apples and oranges. Cook knows under the 2015 Freedom Act, there’s no presumption of privacy for terrorists plotting and killing U.S. citizens. Farook’s case has nothing to do with “freedoms and liberties.” Purely and simply, the San Bernardino case has to do with unlocking the iPhone pass-code of a mass-murdering terrorist, nothing about “freedoms and liberties” of any law-abiding iPhone user. “This case is about much more than a single phone or a single investigation, so when we received the government order we knew we had to speak out,” said Cook.
Cook knows full-well the San Bernardino case is precisely about one iPhone 6. It has nothing to do with anyone else’s phone. Cook’s illogical arguments almost give them more credibility because they’re such hyperbole. They’re far less plausible than when Booz Allen Hamilton employee Edward Snowden stole government electronic surveillance data May 20, 2013, escaped U.S. authorities to Hong Kong and fled to Moscow June 23, 2013 where Russian President Vladimir Putin granted his temporary asylum July 23, 2013 sticking it to the U.S. Unlike Farook, Snowden didn’t commit mass murder, only released classified National Security data. Whether a traitor or whistleblower, Snowden’s case has nothing to do with Apple, making a bogus privacy argument. No one under the U.S. Freedom Act or now defunct Patriot Act violates privacy laws for terrorists or mass killers.
Calling a judge’s order to unlock the pass-code on Farook’s iPhone 6 “a dangerous precedent that threatens everyone’s civil liberties,” Cook shows the same fanatical logic as Snowden. Snowden always excused his actions violating the 1917 U.S. Espionage Act. Cook’s public remarks reveal he’s not fit for duty to head Apple Computer. Asking Apple employees to back his outrageous arguments put the entire company and all its employees at risk. Because Cook makes untenable and illogical statements doesn’t mean they have any legal, ethical or moral credibility. “We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the land,” said Comey, refuting Cook’s public remarks. Comey only wants Farook’s pass-code unlocked to prevent erasing the iPhone’s contents. If Cook’s really that paranoid, he’s not fit to run a publicly traded company.
Cook’s public remarks defend no logical legal, moral or ethical principle, revealing either an egotistical battle with the government or something reflecting his fitness for duty as Apple CEO. Comey has stated unequivocally that the FBI only wants access to a known terrorist’s iPhone 6, not a backdoor or any compromise to Apple’s ecryption software. Cook insists that Apple “would be relentlessly attacked by hackers and cyber-criminals” if he agrees to unlock Farook’s pass-code. Making such outrageous statements doesn’t make them right or give them credibility. No Apple employee should accept Cook’s “us against them” mentality, putting one of the world’s most prestigious companies into jeopardy. Unlocking Farook’s iPhone 6 pass-code hurts no one’s privacy other than one dead terrorist. Cook’s arguments defy all logic and violate the 2015 U.S. Freedom Act.
