Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., argued Thursday that Apple’s real objection to helping the FBI unlock one of the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhones is preserving its profit, not protecting people’s privacy.
“Apple is not fighting for privacy; it’s fighting for profit,” Cotton wrote in an op-ed in Time. He said what’s really at stake in the fight is “the future of our ability to keep Americans safe.”
According to Cotton, Apple made its newer products unaccessible by law enforcement for its own marketing purposes, even though the company agreed to assist the FBI in 70 prior cases.
Since ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed how much the federal government spies on U.S. citizens, the technology industry has been hard at work to regain consumer trust, Cotton argued.
“What’s changed? Apparently Apple’s marketing strategy did,” Cotton wrote. “In short, Apple says it can no longer cooperate with investigations because it’s now the business model of Apple to thwart these investigations.”
In a separate interview with Time about an iPhone application this week, CEO Tim Cook argued that the encryption standards in new phone models has nothing to do with Snowden’s 2013 disclosures.
“From the very start of Messages … we launched it with end-to-end encryption,” Cook said. “And so this didn’t just happen, we didn’t suddenly think of this after Snowden. I know everybody says that, but it’s not true.”
In a case in New York, Apple said that forcing it to unlock its devices for the FBI would “tarnish the Apple brand.”
In the San Bernardino case, the FBI wants Apple to build software so it can hack into shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone. A court has ordered Apple to do so, but the tech giant has so far refused to comply because it would have to create a new unsecure operating system to retrieve the information, one different from those used in the past for other iPhone models.
Though the FBI insists it only wants the technology to access Farook’s phone, Apple has said the request would make millions of other devices vulnerable to hackers.
“An Edward Snowden-driven marketing strategy doesn’t exempt Apple from its duties as an American company under the law,” Cotton wrote Thursday, backing the FBI’s claims.
