Tech CEOs Stand In Solidarity With Apple's Tim Cook As He Takes On The FBI Over Digital Privacy
Two tech CEOs have stepped forward in support of Apple CEO Tim Cook in his ongoing standoff with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The controversy erupted when a California judge on Tuesday asked Apple to offer all possible assistance to law enforcement agencies in the investigation against Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the two now-deceased perpetrators of last year's San Bernardino attack.
The court order in question emboldened the FBI even further in their dealings with the Cupertino-based tech giant and it subsequently started asking Apple to disable a feature that erases all content on a user's device after 10 failed passcode attempts.
However, Apple led by Cook was hardly in the mood to give into the demands of the FBI. To make a strong case advocating consumers' right to privacy, Cook on Wednesday wrote an open letter.
"The government's demands are chilling," he said as reported by CNBC. "We are challenging the FBI's demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country."
The controversy, needless to say, added fuel to the extremely polarizing debate on national security vs online privacy.
While public opinion is divided on the matter, CEOs of two major tech companies including Sundar Pichai of Google and Jan Koum of instant messaging platform Whatsapp have now stood in solidarity with Apple and Tim Cook in their battle against the FBI.
"I have always admired Tim Cook for his stance on privacy and Apple's efforts to protect user data," Koum, who happens to be a Facebook board member, said. "We must not allow this dangerous precedent to be set. Today our freedom and our liberty is at stake."
Not just these two, the Cook's decision to stand for consumers' rights to digital privacy was backed by activist and whistleblower Edward Snowden as well as Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies and a few others.
According to Bajarin, Cooks' decision not to hand over a backdoor encryption to the FBI was commendable as giving into the pressure by law enforcement agencies could possibly set a precedent.
"It is true that [the government] is positioning this as an isolated case, but because of the way our justice system works, it becomes a precedent, and once a precedent is set, [the government] or other cases can come back and use this to try and get the same action in the future," he said.
