Friends Kingdom: Re: [iPad] interesting article on the gov versus Apple

Thanks. Skimmed it.

The way American courts operate now - interpret laws however it pleases them - and lean now - in favor of extending government power and limiting individual freedom - I doubt appealing to free speech will work at the Supreme Court level.

In any case, it certainly will carry zero weight in Europe, China, and Russia.

Big Brother is on the march and won't be denied. He will protect you to death.

On Mar 4, 2016, at 9:35 AM, mary davidson mary.davidson@gmail.com [iPad] <iPad@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

I thought this might add to the conversation. Mary Davidson

from the Electronic Frontier Foundation

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/deep-dive-why-forcing-apple-write-and-sign-code-violates-first-amendment

Deep Dive: Why Forcing Apple to Write and Sign Code Violates the First Amendment

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But what the government is asking Apple to do in this case—i.e., force Apple and its programmers to write and sign the code necessary to comply with the judge's order—is not just an unprecedented expansion of the All Writs Act that puts the security and privacy of millions of people at risk. It is also a violation of the First Amendment.

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This is where the First Amendment comes in. The Constitution clearly prevents the government from forcing people to endorse positions they do not agree with. Whether that endorsement takes the form of raising your hand, signing a loyalty oath, putting a license plate motto on your car or, as here, implementing an algorithm that creates a digital signature, the problem is the same. As the Supreme Court noted in a case involving whether the government could force private parade organizers to include viewpoints they disagreed with, "[W]hen dissemination of a view contrary to one's own is forced upon a speaker intimately connected with the communication advanced, the speaker's right to autonomy over the message is compromised."As a result, government mandates requiring people to speak are subject to strict scrutiny—the most stringent standard of judicial review in the United States.

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Apple is being forced to actually write and endorse code that it—rightly—believes is dangerous.