This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on March 21 - 27, 2016.

Whose side are you on — Apple or the Justice Department? This is one question that has deeply divided the people of the US. From politicians and Silicon Valley titans to Joe Public, virtually everyone has taken sides.

At the heart of this debate is the refusal of Silicon Valley giant Apple to comply with an order by a Southern California judge — now supported by a motion from the US Justice Department — to bypass strong encryption on an iPhone 5c used by one of the alleged killers in the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.

Law enforcement officials want to get at data that might be stored on the iPhone, and which can only be retrieved if Apple writes new software to unlock the device. Any attempt to hack the phone, without Apple’s technical cooperation, is likely to render the data irretrievable.

But Apple has put up a brave fight against the court order. The grounds for objection are best summed up in Apple chief Tim Cook’s open letter to customers recently. In it, he warns that acceding to the court order and helping the FBI to create a tool to break into Syed Rizwan’s iPhone 5c would set a “dangerous precedent”.

“The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices,” he says.

“In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable,” Cook argues.

“This case is about much more than a single phone or a single investigation, so when we received the government’s order, we knew we had to speak out. At stake is the data security of hundreds of millions of law-abiding people, and setting a dangerous precedent that threatens everyone’s civil liberties.”

Apparently, the court order raised a red flag not just for Cook. Many tech giants, including Google and Twitter, have rallied behind Apple. Privacy advocates have also decried the FBI’s effort to force Apple to unlock the phone.

But not all of Silicon Valley are with Apple on this debate. Microsoft’s Bill Gate has sided with the FBI, saying that technology companies should be compelled to work with law enforcement in the investigation of terrorism.

Countering Cook’s “dangerous precedent” theory, Gates says the FBI is requesting back door access only in this case. Comparing it to getting bank records, he says: “Let’s say the bank had tied a ribbon around the disk drive and said, ‘Don’t make me cut this ribbon because you’ll make me cut it many times’.”

In siding with the court, Gates breaks ranks with other Silicon Valley titans such as Google, Facebook and WhatsApp. Mark Zuckerberg, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai and WhatsApp founder Jan Koum are some of those who have publicly come out in support of Apple.

Make no mistake, Apple is not the only one in this fight. Google, too, has beefed up its encryption in the past few years.

Moreover, this court battle over an iPhone gives rise to a whole range of questions about technology policy, privacy issues, international competitiveness and civil rights. Many do not think that a court is the proper forum to make these kinds of far-reaching policy decisions without going through a proper consultation process.

In fact, no one has put this complicated debate into perspective in plain language that all can understand — and not just geeks and legal eagles — better than Tim Cook.

In October 2015, he told America’s National Public Radio (NPR) that some of our most personal data is on our phones: our financial data, health information and conversations with our friends and family and co-workers. “We do think that people want us to help them keep their lives private,” he concluded.

Perhaps this is the right time to share Benjamin Franklin’s adage about the moral quality, or lack thereof, of people who want to trade privacy for a little temporary security. Franklin made the following statement to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1755: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

So, whose side are you on — Apple or the Justice Department?

Khaw Veon Szu, a former executive director of a local think tank, is a practising lawyer. Opinions expressed in this article are his own.

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