Instead, the US Government has decided to leverage the tragedy that happened in California to pursue a very different agenda:

If you believe the Government’s case, then terrorism is the root of the problem here, and the real change that we need in our society is for the Government to have backdoors into our phones.

Let’s run the numbers on that:

Source: Rolling Stone

It’s absurd.

The guns in San Bernardino that resulted in all those deaths were legally purchased weapons. And the big legal push the US Government has decided to make in response?

It’s decided to seek a precedent that would allow it to force every American company to create a backdoor for the Government to snoop on anyone it so pleases.

The logic is outrageous: “People got shot. So we need a backdoor into your phone.”

In response, the company in question decided to take a principled stance. They said no. No, we’re not going to be forced to create weaknesses in our products — weaknesses that would compromise the privacy of customers not just in the US, but all around the world. Weaknesses that would give the green light to countries like China to demand exactly the same thing.

I think it was an incredibly brave and principled thing for Apple and Tim Cook to do. And remember: principles only mean something if you stick by them when they’re inconvenient.

Unfortunately, this approach to principles isn’t one that carries much weight in Washington DC. That, or the US Government has forgotten what it was lecturing other countries on less than 12 months ago:

In any properly functioning society, Apple would get adulation for standing up to a Government trying to do this.

But do you know what Apple got for taking that principled stance? They got shit piled on them. Shit piled on them by people like this clown — who, by the way, could be the next President of the US — who said:

“But to think that Apple won’t allow us to get into her cell phone. Who do they think they are? They have to open it up.”

Well, Donald. Let me tell you who they are.

These are the people who are trying to stop Vladimir Putin, your old pal from the KGB, from being able to hack into yours — and everybody else's— phone.

That’s who they f&*%ing are.

These are people who aren’t just from the largest company in America — they are from one of its most admired. When Apple’s CEO died a few years ago, people all around the world went into mourning.

And you know why?

Because, unlike you, Mr. Front-Runner-for-the-Republican-nomination, these are people who actually give a shit about principles.