Notice how the headline makes sure to specify &quot;over terrorist&#x27;s phone&quot; and not &quot;over user privacy&quot; or &quot;against federal conscription by the FBI.&quot;<p>Take a second and re-read the headline. What does it say? To me, it spells out Microsoft joins Apple to back terrorist&#x27;s privacy against the FBI.<p>The government couldn&#x27;t have chosen a better case to publicize in search of a precedent in their favor. And the media isn&#x27;t helping.<p>Edit: In case it wasn&#x27;t clear, I think it&#x27;s actually disingenuous to mention the word &quot;terrorist&quot; in the headline at all. Nothing about why Apple is resisting (which is the crux of this news cycle) has to do with the fact that they are, bizarrely, fighting for <i>this</i> (dead) user (who is undeniably a madman murderer and potentially a terrorist)&#x27;s right to privacy.<p>Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and everyone here in the comments isn&#x27;t defending <i>this</i> person&#x27;s right to privacy. It&#x27;s 100% about the principle and the precedent and it&#x27;s a million times about the future users and nothing to do with this horrible person. For that reason, it&#x27;s unfair (in fact, you could call it purposeful misrepresentation) to say that they are against the FBI unlocking &quot;terrorist&#x27;s phone&quot; or defending the &quot;terrorist&#x27;s privacy&quot; in any way. What they are doing, if one excludes self-interest, is protecting the principle for everyone else out there.