What happened:
In December of 2015, the couple Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people and injured 22 others in a shooting in San Bernardino, California. When the FBI searched their home, three phones were recovered, two of which were destroyed. The third phone was locked with a passcode that no one knew and a setting that erased all information after ten failed attempts to open it.
What the FBI wanted:
The FBI reached out to Apple to unlock the phone, but without the code, they couldn’t do much. Fortunately being a work phone, it belonged to San Bernardino County, who changed the iCloud password to access some of the phone’s information. Unfortunately, the phone hadn’t been backed up for about six months.
The FBI reached out to Apple again asking them to create a new version of IOS 9 without the ten guess limit to unlock the phone. They also put in a court order for Apple’s help using the All Writs Act, which demands that digital companies “adhere to some kind of neutral body dedicated to privacy.”
Apple’s response:
Apple resisted this court order for a couple of reasons. One reason was on the basis that writing code is considered speech and to demand Apple to create new speech and to demand their code writers to create such speech was violation of the First Amendment. Apple also argued that once a code is created to access one phone, it could be applied to all phones one way or another by anyone, including hackers.
One ethical dilemma:
If the First Amendment argument used by Apple wins the case, it could also open doors to other potential disagreements with privacy. If Apple is given permission to withhold code of the basis of speech, other companies that are required to collect and share data using code could potentially use the First Amendment to keep valuable information to themselves.
The extent to which privacy should be permitted needs to be considered. Is there a line where once crossed, privacy is automatically given up? If so when do we draw that line?
If there was a point when privacy should be automatically given up, it should be when that person commits a major felony. If one individual can take away parts of or whole individuals in some way, they should lose their privacy.
I do think it is ethical to demand that, for the sake of crime, anyone who commits a crime needs to be willing to give up their privacy at any moment. If the government has a code that can tap into the privacy of an individual, the government could go into any phone, whether or not the person committed a crime, which I believe is not ethical.
Considering the evidence:
There were three phones altogether, two of which were destroyed. The fact that the third phone, a work phone, wasn’t hidden or broken like the others before the attack is important to think about. This should make one wonder if there was a reason for not destroying the third phone.
Since the terrorists both had private phones, there is little motivation to keep important terrorist related information on a work phone. The fact that the private phones were destroyed hints that any important information would be on those phones, not the one phone that was still intact. There is always the possibility that the terrorists forgot to destroy the third phone, or had planned to do so after the attack, but that is hard to believe since the attack seemed to be well planned out.
Our privacy and why we should care:
Humans need to communicate and need a sense of privacy. Although these “needs” contradict each other, a balance of both is possible. There is a part of our lives, we as individuals are okay with sharing or willing to make public. There is also a part that we are more comfortable with keeping to ourselves and our closest loved ones. In some cases the larger community we are a part of can benefit from not knowing or having access to this certain private information. If the outcome of the Apple versus FBI case grants the FBI access to unlock iPhones, a huge sense of individual privacy will be lost.
The Apple versus FBI case is trying to push the boundaries of human rights. Our privacy is not worth the potential protection from terrorism that the FBI could provide if they were allowed to break into any iPhone. The needed separation between private and public information would be blurred and the government would be straying from democracy and into a more controlling, invasive government.
We need a level of privacy in order to function as a community and if there were no longer any privacy there would no longer be a functional government. Offering the FBI the ability to have complete access into our private lives would allow them to control our lives to some extent, eliminating our sense of freedom and control over our own lives. This control would also create a feeling of animosity between the government and the individual. Privacy is a right and although some may exploit that through acts of terrorism doesn’t mean the bad choices of a few should restrict the lives of many as a result.
What actually happened:
Recently, the FBI found a third party that was able to hack into the phone without help from Apple. The government asked the court to drop the case and the issue was dismissed. This solution may end the legal battle, but the ethical issue of privacy is still there. It is unlikely that an answer to what the boundaries of privacy should be will arise since the case is dropped, but there will most likely be a case in the future that will demand a decision to be made.
