Apple CEO Tim Cook said he is “deeply offended” by how the government is behaving toward him and his company, he said in an interview released Thursday, adding that it feels like a “bad dream.”
Cook made the remarks in an interview with Time regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s effort to compel the company to assist it in accessing an Apple iPhone used by terrorists in California’s December attack. Cook complained about the FBI’s failure to communicate with him, in spite of the company’s effort to help before a court order was issued.
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“I’m seeing the government apparatus in a way I’ve never seen it before,” Cook said. “Do I like finding out from the press about it? No, I don’t think it’s professional. Do I like them talking about or lying about our intentions? No. I’m offended by it. Deeply offended by it.”
Cook explained that the FBI contacted a special desk that Apple has established specifically for helping the government with needs related to its product. The company did attempt to help the agency, but made a labored decision to draw the line at creating new software specifically for the agency to use, an idea nicknamed within the company as GovtOS. After that decision, the FBI filed suit without warning.
“If I’m working with you for several months on things, if I have a relationship with you, and I decide one day I’m going to sue you, I’m a country boy at the end of the day: I’m going to pick up the phone and tell you I’m going to sue you,” the Alabama native added.
“We’re in this bizarre position where we’re defending the civil liberties of the country against the government,” Cook said. “I mean, I never expected to be in this position. The government should always be the one defending civil liberties, and yet there’s a role-reversal here. I still feel like I’m in another world, that I’m in this bad dream.”
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“We see that this is our moment to stand up and say ‘stop’ and force a dialogue. There’s been too many times that government is just so strong and so powerful and so loud that they really just limit or they don’t hear the discourse.… Sometimes the way we get somewhere, our journey is very ugly. But I’m a big optimist that we ultimately arrive at the right thing,” he said.
