Hype always gets someone's hopes up, only to leave them disappointed. Sometimes we even expect to be disappointed by things that don't even deserve the hype. Take "Batman v Superman," a movie that was hyped up for nearly three years and inspired laughter or dread among fanboys. Tell me if I'm reaching with this comparison, but laughter and dread (though possibly more dread) accompanied the FBI's hyped-up sense of urgency over getting into San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook's phone.

They don't look convinced by my comparison.

Last December, Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik opened fire on a gathering of employees at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. They left 14 people dead and 22 wounded before being killed in a shootout with police. Since then, the FBI has been intent on unlocking Farook's employer-provided phone in order to collect whatever information might have been stored on it. To that end, they turned to Apple to help break into the locked phone. Apple insisted that they could do nothing short of completely rewriting the software. "Why not create that software just for this one phone?" asked the FBI. "You could destroy it afterward, and we'll never ask you to do this again!" they insisted. Tim Cook and Apple again rebuffed them, doubtful the feds wouldn't put them in this position again and concerned about the ramifications for their non-terrorist customers' privacy. The FBI then filed a court order to force them to comply, but Apple fought that order. After this rejection, the FBI lost patience and turned to an undisclosed third party in order to gain access to the phone's data. What have the feds found to justify all the commotion they caused? Absolutely nothing of value.

She'll never crack...until she does.

Instead of getting hung up (pardon the pun) on that phone, the FBI could have used their resources to track down some solid leads. Of course, that's assuming such leads haven't disappeared during the phone hysteria. Plus, why would a terrorist leave evidence of their plans and communications with collaborators on their employer-provided phone? To the FBI's credit, the couple had destroyed their personal phones, but that fact should have been a hint that they would find nothing useful on any phone. The lesson for terrorists is to switch to Android or get a burner phone. The lesson for the rest of us is that the FBI won't be deterred from getting into a person's phone. We are repeatedly disturbed by government agencies' abilities to invade our privacy, but does that privacy even exist anymore? It's a question for another article.