LETTER: Apple should not have to do what FBI has asked

In reference to the Apple vs. FBI situation, I present the following:

Our Constitution mandates that our private persons, dwellings and effects cannot be invaded by a government agency without probable cause certified by a warrant signed by a judge.

Our government has adopted the position that electronic devices are not private since they use the public airwaves, etc., that anyone can intercept. That makes wireless devices open to government spying and our government has done so excessively using terrorism as an excuse. So if the phone in this case were still in use, the messages could be legally captured and decoded if possible. As I understand it, the FBI has not been able to decode this phone and has gotten a judge to sign a warrant allowing them access to its contents. So the FBI has the legal authority to hack the phone.

I don’t know all the details of the conflict with Apple, but their mistake seems to be that they admit that they can hack the phone and retrieve the contents but refuse to do so. That makes sense for Apple because if customers know the phone can be hacked, no one will buy one. Apple’s response should have been that we would be happy to comply with the court order, but there is no way to break the encryption that we know of.

To me the crux of the matter is that Apple does not own or have the phone in its possession. That means that Apple has no legal obligation to do anything with it or the contents. A judge cannot order you or I to go into another person’s house, break open their safe and deliver the contents to the police. This is true even if the police have a warrant to search the house and safe. Apple made the lock but doesn’t have the key (i.e., the password). It is up to the FBI to gain entry, not force a private company to do so. —Gerry Hurst, Marion