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Comment by nickburns | Hacker News Reader

> its reasonable to assume they would do the same in the US (disable the feature if USG asked for a backdoor or attempted to compel them to decrypt)

I think it's more likely that Apple would challenge it in US courts and prevail. Certainly a legal battle worth waging, unlike in the UK.

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This has already happened, and Apple did fight it in the US courts.

Eventually the US government withdrew their demand.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption...

Exactly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...

It's worth pointing out that just because the FBI didn't have the access they wanted, it doesn't mean that other agencies don't, or that the FBI couldn't get the data they wanted by other means (which was exactly what they ended up doing in that specific case). It just means that they wanted Apple to make it easier for them to get the data.

It's good that Apple refused them, but I wouldn't count that as evidence that the data is secure from the US government.

It's also worth noting that the US courts have long held that computer code is speech.

Apple's legal argument that the government's demand that they insert a backdoor into iOS was tantamount to compelled speech (in violation of the first amendment) was going over a little too well in court.

The Feds will often find an excuse to drop cases that would set a precedent they want to avoid.

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