&gt; For example, they could be forced to first publish an update to all devices (through the third parties) which disables the third-party-checks.<p>And the device wouldn&#x27;t accept it. If I subscribed to an organisation over which USG has no sway, say Computer Chaos Club from Germany, then my update wouldn&#x27;t be accepted unless additional signatures were provided from them. Unless USG forced Apple to abandon such scheme for everyone then they would be powerless to backdoor individuals. I&#x27;m also not sure how relevant this is here, but in US it&#x27;s been established that software is speech and is protected by the first amendment so there are limitations to ways in which US can influence Apple.