Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with ABC News’ David Muir in his office at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California yesterday in a nationally televised 30-minute interview that was broadcast nationwide last evening.
One comment by Cook, among many, perked up my ears:
This is about the future. And so I do see it as a precedent that should not be done in this country or in any country. This is about civil liberties and is about people’s abilities to protect themselves. If we take encryption away… the only people that would be affected are the good people, not the bad people. Apple doesn’t own encryption [exclusively]. Encryption is readily available in every country in the world, as a matter of fact, the U.S. government sponsors and funds encryption in many cases. And so, if we limit it in some way, the people that we’ll hurt are the good people, not the bad people; they will find it anyway. — Apple CEO Tim Cook (comment quoted begins at 13:38 in the video below)
The similarities to the quoted section above and to arguments put forth by 2nd Amendment rights advocates are compelling. Simply replace “encryption” with “guns” in Cook’s argument:
This is about the future. And so I do see it as a precedent that should not be done in this country or in any country. This is about civil liberties and is about people’s abilities to protect themselves. If we take guns away… the only people that would be affected are the good people, not the bad people. Apple doesn’t own guns [exclusively]. Guns are readily available in every country in the world, as a matter of fact, the U.S. government sponsors and funds guns in many cases. And so, if we limit guns in some way, the people that we’ll hurt are the good people, not the bad people; they will find guns anyway.
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Direct link to video here.
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, former web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section who also basically called the iPhone over five years before Steve Jobs unveiled it.
