&gt; Would people opposed to a federal court ordering Apple to unlock an iPhone be okay with a state court doing it? I&#x27;m going to guess &quot;no.&quot;<p>If my state decides to do something demented, I can move to another state. If the thing they are doing is sufficiently demented that enough people move, it will have a material effect on the state. This creates a dynamic that disincentivizes stupidity.<p>The barrier is substantially less for the federal government. It usually takes quite a bit of abuse before people start moving to another country. That makes the state vs federal argument relevant.<p>&gt; As to your final point: while education or healthcare may arguably be outside the scope of the federal government&#x27;s jurisdiction, national security and suppression of internal rebellion was one of the motivations for creating a strong federal government.<p>Okay ... is the FBI&#x2F;DEA&#x2F;TSA&#x2F;etc. there to suppress internal rebellion? I think you can make a pretty good argument that that&#x27;s true, but they certainly don&#x27;t advertise themselves that way.