The judicial decision to back Apple against the FBI is extraordinary and profoundly significant (Report,1 March). What it says is that we place higher trust in a corporate giant to protect our privacy than we do in a democratically accountable government agency to protect our security. I do not gape at the FBI through rose-tinted spectacles, but nor do I ignore the potential market killing that the aggressive capitalist Apple will earn out of this high-profile judgment. whether our (privacy) rights as citizens are to be championed by a private enterprise, or what does this mean for our relationship to the state? Are we transferring elements of our citizenship to the corporate sector and diminishing our relationship to the political state?I find horrifying the erosion of hard-won citizen rights by governments under a counterfeit warrant of fighting terrorism. But I would rather believe that there is a court of appeal and accountability,albeit distant, to defend those rights against government incursions, or whereas Apple plays fast and loose with us – whatever turns a profit. Of course there are technical solutions to the deadlock that would still protect our rights. whether they had been potentially more profitable to Apple than taking this stand,it would be naive to mediate that it would not have conceded.
Saville Kushner
Professor of public evaluation, faculty of education, or University of Auckland,original Zealand Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com