The FBI asked a question to Apple: Can you put a program in all iPhones so that we are without a lot of encryption fuss can monitor all see everything they write, say, saving and shoot?
the question was plump and unusually bluntly. Would it come out that Apple agreed to a patently offensive matter and created an FBI-specific software, it would be difficult for Apple to explain itself. So Apple said no. And instead made a promotional deal out of it.
On Tuesday, they published a press release in which they tell about the FBI’s request, and how they will now do everything in their power to oppose the FBI. Partly because it is illegal and partly because it is unethical. But most of that Apple would otherwise have risked that their customers had left them.
The latter is important, because right now it’s what keeps our privacy liquid. We have seen it over and over in Sweden lately.
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When the FBI , Sweden’s equivalent of the FBI, called automatic access to the Swedish telephone operators meta data about customers, refused Tele2 and walked out with it publicly. When the Swedish government through an investigation was preparing a new filtering of the Internet where some sites to be banned, it was the operator Bahnhof who alerted. And when laws are trying to be enforced where ISPs will be forced to close some pages, then it Bredbandsbolaget taking brawl in court.
The companies make it so clear that it is the right thing to do, but even more to they depend on their customers’ trust.
the same should apply for the State. Full democracy based on mutual trust, citizens choosing deputies in the parliament to take the best decisions for us. But to monitor citizen is not about trust. It is to see themselves as better judgment, it is to increase its power and distance themselves from the people who gave them confidence. It is assumed that all citizens are criminals until proven otherwise and therefore should be monitored.
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the government can do so, for we who are citizens have no way to escape, choose any other state. We can not opt out of being a citizen and can not opt to be monitored.
The reason is our hope private actors goodness and ethics. And our pursuit of our consumer power.
When Edward Snowden 2013 revealed that the US monitored almost all the world’s citizens was also revealed that there was a collaboration with several of our greatest actors. Including Apple. Apple promised that it was not true and has since actively promoted and promised to protect the integrity of use.
When Apple now was asked by the FBI, they had a choice. To accept and risk of one day standing with his pants down, or to fight. Perhaps the lesson learned from Snowden. Anyone who wants to try to sneak in by spying on its customers will always be revealed. And a company that is constantly fighting for survival can not afford to lose customer trust. Therefore, they went to the counter-attack. And therefore, they are perhaps our last hope towards a total surveillance.
It is tragic. Or as Snowden summed it yesterday: The FBI has created a world in which citizens can rely on Apple to defend their rights, rather than the other way around.
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