Jim Patterson Commentary: Tim Cook should out Terrorists

Commentary: Tim Cook should out terrorists

Posted by Steve Lee, Editor Online Only, Top Highlights, Around the Nation, CommentaryLGBT Weekly, San Diego Wednesday, February 17th, 2016

BY JIM PATTERSON

With the Apple annual meeting only days away, the spirited event just got more spirited with news from Cupertino the corporation will fight a court order to cooperate with the FBI investigation into the encrypted Apple iPhone of the dead ISIS sympathizers who viciously murdered 14 co-workers Dec. 2. It is a bold move for CEO Tim Cook. Apple stock was up moderately in early trading Wednesday after the announcement.

With the announcement, openly gay Apple CEO Tim Cook has gone back in the closet. In a time when radical Islamic terrorists and sympathizers threaten American lives from San Bernardino to Times Square, Cook places privacy before national security in announcing he will fight a court order to help the FBI access the shooter iPhone of dead ISIS terrorists Syed Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik.
The dead couple left behind their terror tool of choice the Apple iPhone5C which could contain vital information on their plans, contacts and, most importantly, future terror plots by other ISIS sympathizers. The terror weapon is locked with Apple encryption technology that prevents state and federal agents from accessing information that could save lives.
Cook, in a public statement, said a software backdoor to the Apple iPhone is “too dangerous to create.” It may be too dangerous not to create. The government wants a work around to privacy that would allow them to use unlimited random codes to safely access the phone’s information.  Data are ordinarily deleted after minimal random attempts.
The Apple iPhone used by Farook and Malik and millions of others is an incredible communications device that Steve Jobs created and forever changed the world and the way business, legal and otherwise, is done.
It has also become a ubiquitous device for everything from entertainment to time saving apps to a recruiting station for terrorists and as an aid to kill innocent Americans. I believe Jobs would have realized that and cooperated with the FBI.
Cook wants to protect the privacy of two dead terrorists by denying law enforcement officials access to information that could save lives and provide valuable intelligence in the global fight against terror
in the name of good business. He argues it would be bad for the company and its customers to help the FBI with the technology to access user information. It would leave customers open to increased risk of cyber thieves and other criminals.
The risks are great from Cook cooperating with the feds or keeping the closet door shut on his customers. Washington officials, the family members of those killed in San Bernardino and most assuredly ISIS terrorists are looking to Cook to see what the future will look like for them and the rest of us. If only Jobs were here for Cook to consult.
Instead my fellow Alabamian and fellow Auburn University alum must seek counsel technologically and find a way for Apple to balance privacy and security in a time of serious and deadly global terror threats. If Cook finds a way philosophically and technologically to make this bridge, he may become one of America’s great corporate and global leaders like Jobs.
In ordinary times and under different circumstances, Cook would be right to fight access to customer information. But the times are not ordinary and terrorists are always looking for technological ways to attack our country, our families and our way of life.
The terrorists are effectively using our freedoms and laws to their advantage against us and Tim Cook needs to reconsider his strong willed opposition to cooperating with the government that gives him
the economic system and personal freedom to be the wealthy CEO he is.
He needs to find a way to join in the fight against terror not aid it. Failure to do so could lead to more tragedies he could have helped prevent.
The Apple annual meeting is next week. Security will be extremely heavy for Mr. Cook, board members including Al Gore and stockholders.
That is as it should be. Everyone needs to be protected from the constant threat of terror attacks. Just ask the families of those killed in Paris and San Bernardino.  Apple iPhones should be the product Jobs envisioned them to be to make our lives easier not devices of terrorists to create chaos and endanger lives.

Longtime Washington diplomat Jim Patterson writes from Washington and Silicon Valley.