&gt; &quot;Should the FBI be able to compel technology companies to use their resources against their own and their Customers right to Security.&quot;<p>We can put the case into an even larger context and ask: should the FBI be able to compel [banks, accounting firms, insurance companies] to use their resources against their own and their Customers right to financial privacy? The answer to date, has been &quot;yes.&quot; The right of the justice system to &quot;every man&#x27;s evidence&quot;,[1] has so far been thought to trump the interests of the customer relationship.<p>For decades, government has had the power to compel accounting firms and banks to search through their records (often at significant expense) to deliver information relevant to an investigation. I imagine those companies would love to be able to advertise that they won&#x27;t cooperate with a government investigation of your taxes or financial transactions.<p>In my view, there are two different questions:<p>1) can the government ask Apple to unlock one iPhone; 2) can the government ask Apple to weaken security for all iPhones?[2]<p>The first question, at issue in this case, is something companies deal with all the time in many different contexts. The second question, on the other hand, may well be <i>sui generis</i>. I understand why Apple taking a stand on this particular hill--in their shoes I&#x27;d do it too. Better to &quot;fight them over there so you don&#x27;t have to fight them over here&quot; so to speak.<p>I&#x27;m a little worried about the potential for blowback, though. The tech community is forced, in a way, to spread FUD to justify their argument as to (1). There are a lot of people who are confused by the reporting and think that <i>this case</i> involves the FBI requesting Apple to put backdoors in all of their phones, rather than leveraging an existing security weakness. That&#x27;s not necessarily a great place to be in if you&#x27;re found out.<p>[1] <i>United States v. Nixon</i>, 418 U.S. 683, 709 (1974).<p>[2] I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s technically justifiable to say that (2) is implied by (1). Apple apparently already has the capability to subvert anyone&#x27;s phones by using their signing keys to load weakened software. At a purely technical level, signing an &quot;evil build of iOS&quot; using an existing &quot;backdoor&quot; is different than introducing a backdoor into everyone&#x27;s phone.