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Op-ED: Scum Rises to the Top at Apple

By Brian Hews

In a continuing thoughtless effort to keep from handing over information on a terrorists’ phone, executives at Apple sent what they called “their top ranking Latino,”  who is probably Mexican, to warn Univision viewers that the FBI’s demand could give investigators new surveillance powers.

He then did a Donald Trump on the viewers and said “including information all you immigrants.”

Once again Apple is ignoring the relatives of the murdered people in San Bernardino and several investigators and district attorneys by not allowing the FBI to penetrate that one, and I stress one, phone.

So Apple, in its usual corporate manner, is going after segments of society trying to gin up fear so those segments would go out and support the tech giant.

Never mind that an Apple employee, who already knows what it takes to break into a phone, can go “tech crazy,” write the program and hand off to hackers or another terrorist organization.

Here’s a novel idea. Apple should create a department that will keep the code safe and where nobody else from the outside world can touch the code.

The FBI and CIA do that right now.

A phone would be confiscated, employees would be checked in and out of a special room using biometrics, and, most important, the code would never leave room.

The US does this with nuclear bomb silo operations, so why not Apple?

Here is a company that was just slammed with a $453 million dollar lawsuit trying to fix the price on e-books. Apple admitted it and is now paying out the $450 million.

This is a company that pays entry-level employees $1,000 per week providing them buses so they can ride free from San Francisco to Apple headquarters and back.

This practice is the height of corporate irresponsibility, it is gentrifying San Francisco causing skyrocketing rents and hundreds of the evictions.

This is a company that in 2011 was sued for privacy invasion because the iPhone tracked users locations.

Then into 2014, the Apple Computer was set by default to secretly send your browser search terms back to Apple so they could sell those tendencies to advertisers.

This is a company that is now going after certain segments of society and trying to scare the hell out of them that the iPhone they used could be compromised if they release the code.

I don’t know about you, but there is nothing important I would put on my phone given that I might lose it one day.

I would guess that millions of other people do the same thing and could care less if Apple created the dreaded code.

I don’t have to guess at this: If terrorists killed Tim Cook’s family and left a locked phone behind, that code would be written in one day.

Yet Cook, in an effort to calm users, espouses on his website it’s all about marketing.

Yes marketing scum, and scum rises to the top at Apple.

  • ABC Parent says:

    Old School products like Coca Cola, Dr. Pepper, KFC Chicken, and McDonald’s Special Sauce — All kept secret — in some cases for over a century. And Brainiac tech giant Apple doesn’t know how they would keep the code safe from the outside world?

  • Ron says:

    you have your view and I have mine, to me yours stinks…….

  • Jack Modelia says:

    Opinions are fine. Opinions based on cursory review of this case and past news are also par for the course. Op-ED based on ignorance and 3rd grade level research: a sad commentary on the state of debate.

  • Flip Phone says:

    I like this argument, it is very subjective, I can see points from both sides. Hacking is wild card, can be used world wide. No one is safe haven!

    Patient , and patent rights, are very protective, and can see why apple is trying to make it extremely difficult; setting stage for All American made products.

    Yes, slant on protecting America during times of Wartime, such as in San Bernardino Massacre; but the larger picture, can the United States and other foreign countries, mandate a American a company to open up their patient rights to unveil inside their exclusive manufacturer data wares, without violation to hacking laws, here and abroad? How this is handled, waves could be digested how businesses stay or leave USA!

    If one opens up for security measurement, public at large, could attack the Supreme Court on privacy and constitutional violations. This topic could be as large as: Abortions- Gay Marriage-Mormon sister wives, Legalization of Pot ………………

    Readers, this can spill way outside the perimeters of phones, as privacy protection laws walk in to every aisles of American manufacturing. This case, will take presence how government, deals with privacy and wildcard hacking tank.