While part of it may be PR, I also believe that these are Tim Cook's values shining through. Having an orientation that gets you jailed or killed in some countries, makes you value individual freedom and privacy.
It's great to see this new Apple.
Cook was born in Alabama in 1960. For a long time, his orientation could get him jailed or killed in his place of birth. Hell, as of 2016 Alabama still is hardly a good place for people with Cook's sexual orientation[0][1][2].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Moore#Same-sex_marriage
[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/06/462161670/...
[2] 13A-6-65(3)[3], though ruled unconstitutional (since 2003 and Lawrence v. Texas), is still on the books
Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-30/tim-cook-s...
I think it is relevant to the discussion, because I believe that this is a much deeper motivation than profit maximization. Though, there are of course many other ways to reach the conclusion that privacy is important.
Although things are better these days than there were, there is not complete equality - and I am not speaking legally.
There is no need to "come out" to your friends and family that you are straight and like girls (if you are male and vice versa).
Until there is no bigotry, until there is literally no difference in what sex you prefer, then something like this will have an effect on your life, thus it may have played a part in Tim's view regarding his current position.
It definitely is. The NSA has access to all this data anyways. They just need to get it nailed down legally now, as far as possible.
Apple just can't be seen as collaborating.
How so?
Serious question - is it?
The NSA might or might not share with the FBI, and the FBI might or might not be able to use what's shared in court, which could explain why they want new authority.
Apparently his homosexuality and the resulting stigmatization didn't stop him from espousing horrendous values and ideals.
Someone's sexual orientation has no weight on the values system that he/she would subscribe to and thus shouldn't be taken into consideration in any serious discussion about the topic.
They _may_ have no weight, indeed, as your anecdote illustrates.
People tend to empathize more with people they have something in common with (some research suggests [0][1]), so I think many of us would certainly have a mindset affected by our minority-held sexual orientation, in matters where our sexual orientation actually plays a role (security being one of the more obvious cases).
[0]: http://psp.sagepub.com/content/36/3/398 [1]: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...
If the OP's argument was limited to only the privacy part, I'd have agreed tentatively with him/her as it's undisputed truth that gays under persecution or living in discriminatory environments favor privacy intensely and therefore it could be argued that this influenced the decision of Tim Cook in the apparent fight with the FBI.
> I found a cat that does not like milk.
>
> Therefore, if I see a cat, I can draw no inference
> about the probability that they like milk.
But nevertheless, we can still have some confidence that, absent other indicators, cats like milk.
p.s. Here’s another example closer to home of a “cat that did not like milk:” Roy Cohn, who carried out anti-homosexual witch hunts, and later died of AIDS.
Edit: Adding link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Cohn