Three points.<p>&gt; I&#x27;m also arguing (which you didn&#x27;t counter) that this case lays the groundwork for the FBI to request _new_ products from companies.<p>I don&#x27;t really have an opinion on that. I haven&#x27;t commented much on whether they should have that power.<p>I think in this case, Apple would prefer to make it themself than be forced to hand over the code and keys to let the FBI make it. If Apple says &quot;this is too hard for us&quot;, it&#x27;s plausible that they&#x27;ll need to do that instead. I have seen this point made elsewhere, but I&#x27;m not sure of its validity.<p>&gt;Consider that the FBI could have simply requested Apple provide the data on the phone instead of specifying the mechanism and thereby creating precedent that they can compel a company to create something new.<p>My understanding was that the FBI asked for the data, Apple said &quot;we can&#x27;t do it&quot;, FBI countered with &quot;Do X, Y, and Z, it is technically possible&quot;. Is my understanding incorrect? It sounded like the order needed to specify exactly what was to be done.<p>About the precedent point:<p>I think the proper response is to argue against specific details of the actual case (which you have with the point about forcing them to make a product). If you don&#x27;t have specific objections against the actual case, but worry about precedent, then make explicit the difference between the specific case and the general one, and try to get that acknowledged by the judge. Introduce those arguments in briefs to the court, and try to make it very clear to a future court what the limits of the precedent set should be.<p>If you haven&#x27;t imagined what could go wrong, then don&#x27;t reject something because of unknown dangers. It seems to be born of a lack of trust in future courts, but there&#x27;s no particular reason to distrust future courts over current ones.<p>(If you happen to know any philosophy of law articles that discuss this topic, I&#x27;d love to see them.)