Forget the technology. If the FBI successfully forces Apple to create a new OS just to brute-force hack its own product, it’s the first step through a very dark one-way door — for all of us.

In case you haven’t heard, the FBI has in its possession an Apple iPhone 5C that was used by one of the terrorists involved in last year’s San Bernardino, California, mass shooting. The device has potentially valuable information that law enforcement cannot access because the phone is locked with a passcode. What’s more, if the terrorist used the iOS security option that wipes the phone after 10 consecutive failed log-in attempts, that information will be lost forever.

The FBI believes Apple can build a firmware upgrade that will prevent the phone from performing a data wipe and make it easier to crack the passcode. Now a judge is ordering Apple to comply.

For the time being, let’s assume that the government’s request is possible (and most experts seem to agree it is).

In his carefully worded rebuttal and rather eloquent warning, Apple CEO Tim Cook never says what the FBI is requesting can't be done. Some pundits have surmised that this is because the phone in question, an iPhone 5C, doesn’t include something called a Secure Element. That CPU-embedded piece of hardware is like kryptonite for hacking. Touch it the wrong way and the phone is a brick. The 5C and the data on it, though, apparently could survive such a hack and the brute-force PIN-guessing the FBI would like to attempt.

Some may be comforted by the possibility that this firmware upgrade might not be, as Cook termed it, “the equivalent of a master key” and by the FBI’s assurances that this would be used once and that it will be designed to work solely with the terrorist’s phone (which was actually owned by the county). But those technical considerations are beside the point.

This battle probably couldn’t come at a worse and more dangerous time.

Assessing the threat

Our privacy hangs in the balance, and thanks to a fresh and growing array of homeland security concerns, it may soon start tipping in the direction of transparency. That's because even as Apple grapples with the FBI demands, national security officials are painting an increasingly dire threat picture.

Earlier this month, James Clapper, U.S. Director of National Intelligence delivered his annual Worldwide Threat Assessment to Congress in a speech that mentioned the word "attacks" 46 times. In it he offered this chilling assessment:

The United States will almost certainly remain at least a rhetorically important enemy for most violent extremists in part due to past and ongoing US military, political, and economic engagement overseas. Sunni violent extremists will probably continually plot against US interests overseas. A smaller number will attempt to overcome the logistical challenges associated with conducting attacks on the US homeland.

And the myriad threats aren't limited to jihadists coming to the U.S. homeland. Noted Clapper:

US-based HVEs [homegrown violent extremists] will probably continue to pose the most significant Sunni terrorist threat to the US homeland in 2016.

These statements put a sharp point on what might have been a dull, yet persistent worry about the possibility of further terrorist attack on U.S. soil. That concern will clearly weigh heavily on citizens and, I think, especially on Congress.

If Apple is forced to comply with the FBI and investigators do, in fact, find valuable intelligence on that iPhone 5C, federal lawmakers will take it as a signal that, put bluntly, this works and the time to act is now.

No sympathy for the devil

“We have no sympathy for terrorists,” wrote Cook in his open letter to customers. Surely it’s a sentiment we all share, but Cook has empathy for his customers and knows the risks they'll face from even a single act of compliance on Apple's part. Cook made it clear that Apple cooperates and assists with requests wherever possible, but they have never given access to end-to-end encrypted data, because they can’t technically do so and they have fought every request for digital backdoors into secure hardware and software.

Cook and Apple are, in some ways, just like the rest of us. They want the terrorists stopped, just not at the expense of every shred of privacy iPhone customers enjoy. But what happens if Apple loses? The FBI gets what it wants, accesses the iPhone 5c, pores over the data — and then what?

What we face is a bizarre risk of success. Who knows what the FBI could learn from access to that phone. Will it trace a thread directly from the San Bernardino terrorists to an ISIS cell in Syria? Will it provide phone numbers, locations and logistical strategies? It’s that kind of jackpot information that will generate an existential crisis for privacy and security proponents.

How do we deny law enforcement when there is so much potentially attainable and actionable information?

If Apple is forced to write that software and the FBI finds nothing or tries to build scant evidence up into a big win, everyone will know. We will still be on a slippery slope, but I bet many tech companies will be able to point to this moment as a law enforcement overreach that netted virtually nothing.

Success, though, will turn that slippery slope into a landslide. Apple and virtually every other technology company will not just lose ground in this battle if the FBI succeeds — the ground will slide out from under them. Doing whatever is technically possible to stop terrorists will become compulsory. The idea of a technological backdoor will go from a controversial and almost universally despised idea to one that is a necessary evil — to combat true evil.

Executive decision

There is the possibility that this battle between Apple and the U.S. government will rage on for months (it could go all the way to the Supreme Court), but let’s say for the moment, that we’re in the post-hacked iPhone 5C world. Now Congress and some portion of the U.S. public is anxious to get ahead of future terrorist threats by making technology backdoors the law of the land.

A Republican-led Congress times the bill to move through Senate and the House and arrive at the President’s desk in late January 2017. Just in time for a new President to sign off.

If Donald Trump is in the White House, what do you think he’ll do?

BONUS: Apple vs. the FBI explained, how this case might affect your iPhone