You&#x27;re assuming that this request is at the bottom of the slippery slope rather than at the top.<p>The FBI made clear that this was a special case, just one solitary phone to decrypt from a nasty terrorist. And no one likes terrorists, so we can all agree that we need to read his secret data.<p>But then it&#x27;s revealed that there are dozens, perhaps even hundreds of these requests in queue, and few involve terrorism.<p>And after the government is successful at coercing Apple into creating special software, why do you think that the next stop won&#x27;t be to coerce apple into handing over signed code that will work on any phone (or even signing keys themselves)? After all, if the government needs to read data off of thousands of phones, surely they can&#x27;t wait for Apple to do them all.<p>&gt; The FBI didn&#x27;t ask Apple to decrypt the device because that would be impossible.<p>Decrypting the phone is only impossible if the user had a strong passphrase, which is unlikely, so if Apple turns off the brute force checks, decrypting the phone means only cycling through 10000 or 100000 passphrases. A few hours or a few days at most.<p>If decrypting the device is impossible, then the FBI wouldn&#x27;t be asking for Apple&#x27;s help.