The problem with saying that you’re not trying to set a precedent is that usually, when you have to say it, you’re probably in the process of setting a precedent. It’s just the nature of the beast.

So on the one hand, yes: The FBI v. Apple lawsuit involving the iPhones of the San Bernardino shooters is about trying to protect the American public and preventing future tragedies and attacks. Nobody likes the idea of their friends and family getting killed.

On the other hand, let’s not pretend that U.S. agencies haven’t used security measures before for their own interests.

Is it possible that Apple is more invested in protecting their business than civil liberties? Sure—and honestly, as a business, shouldn’t they be watching their own backs? If they can disguise it as being a civil rights issue—that is, the interest and security of their customers and protecting themselves against the All-Seeing Eye of Big Brother—good for them. What other business has the customer loyalty Apple has to back it up? (Although, maybe Apple should make sure its cloud is unhackable before talking about customer security. How many celebrity nudes were stolen again?)

But maybe let’s not be cynical about it and assume that Apple really does have its customer’s safety at heart, and that the FBI’s only goal in asking Apple to make a backdoor to the OS is to protect Americans.

The Director of the FBI, James Comey, uses a lot of “Think about the victims” rhetoric in his editorial asking the American people to understand why this isn’t meant to create a situation in which the FBI can, in the future, demand that any company immediately provide access to anyone’s phone if they need it and why our interests should be the same as theirs. Okay—but going back to the language, it’s a guilt trip. Pathos isn’t the strongest kind of rhetoric when held up to a magnifying glass, but those words like “heart-breaking” and “innocents” is meant to make you feel bad. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t: what happened was a tragedy, and we should grieve for the victims of the shooting and their families.

But should the director of the FBI be telling us that we should just talk to each other when the FBI and Apple were about to go to court against each other? He asks that people “stop saying the world is ending,” but I’m not so sure that’s exactly what people criticizing the FBI are saying.

The American people have a right too to be worried about the government over-extending its arms and legs into their personal business (there’s a joke that asks how many federal agents spend their time looking at nude photographs, but it’s not so much a joke as a statement on the fact that there are men who will abuse their power to look at things that aren’t theirs), just like Apple as a company has a right to want to protect its business interests.