[aback]

That's interesting.

IANAL but seems like you're missing something.

Apple can simply let Employee B take Employee A's place after A quits. When the authorities come for B, B can quit, and Apple can re-hire A.

Apple never has to comply.

[ThrustVectoring]

Employee A doesn't have to actually quit, they just have to credibly threaten to. Say, by signing an open letter that says that they'd quit before helping backdoor the iPhone. Apple can then claim that they cannot bring together a team that is willing and able to backdoor that iPhone.

When you break down the process of having a private company comply with an order to create a particular piece of software, there's many failure points.

The counter from the governmental side is "we will give your company massive fines until and unless your company complies".

As a note, the actual text of the court order (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2714001-SB-Shooter-O...) explicitly says that Apple can appeal it on grounds that it is an unreasonable request. Uncooperative engineers can make it an unreasonable request, and have the legal right to be as uncooperative as they want to be in this case. And, they're on the same side as the CEO of Apple ethically, so it isn't career suicide.

[baddox]

> The counter from the governmental side is "we will give your company massive fines until and unless your company complies".

At which point is becomes worth it for Apple to pay an engineer to do the job. I doubt it wouldn't take much of a bonus to get someone to do it.

[Alupis]

> > The counter from the governmental side is "we will give your company massive fines until and unless your company complies".

> At which point is becomes worth it for Apple to pay an engineer to do the job. I doubt it wouldn't take much of a bonus to get someone to do it.

What happens if Apple says they aren't paying these unjust fines? Theoretically, court order, law, or what-have-you, Apple can just straight refuse to participate (and hopefully other big tech companies would follow suit).

Sure the gov't can make arrests, threats, seize assets -- but in the end, the gov't still don't get what they want (but they do get a ton of very, very bad PR in the process). At a point, the gov't would have to stop -- destroying the world's most valuable company, and one of America's sweetheart companies, all over this... wouldn't play out well.

[dragonwriter]

> What happens if Apple says they aren't paying these unjust fines?

Then they'll be subject to additional penalties, seizure of property, etc., and quite possibly shareholder lawsuits stemming from the decision to incur those losses.

> Sure the gov't can make arrests, threats, seize assets -- but in the end, the gov't still don't get what they want

Maybe, given the recent discussion of mandatory limits on encrypted communication services without up-front backdoors, what the government wants is a clear demonstration that the operation of those services interferes with evidence and intelligence gathering in terrorism cases to build the case for new laws restricting the operations of such services.

[baddox]

Yeah, I mean it seems like the other commenter is implying that, at the end of the day, the government can't actually do anything to a big company. Clearly that's not true. The Us government has completely broken up companies, which is a heck of a lot more intrusive than forcing them to decrypt phones.

[Alupis]

> implying that, at the end of the day, the government can't actually do anything to a big company

I wasn't trying to imply this at all - of course the government can destroy companies.

What I was implying is that, given the past few years of heightened public awareness of domestic government programs and efforts, perhaps this time public pressure would be exerted on the government to lay off the issue. Apple is one of the most loved companies in the country, people would be very interested in knowing why it's suddenly being torn down.

[aback]

I think he's arguing that government's power to destroy big companies is only as strong as the popular distaste for those companies.

A company like Apple, which is practically an icon of "everything America still gets right," would be a very politically dangerous target to go after.

[Alupis]

It would be quite unfair for anyone to expect martyrdom of Tim Cook, however, the action taken could send a very powerful message. Apple is one of the most loved companies in the US, if Cook and gang put the foot down firmly, surely the public struggle would generate immense discussion.

People would want to know why their favorite company was drawing a hard line, hopefully lead to a more educated debate.

We couldn't possibly expect this to take place as it would imply huge fallout for Apple. The only real course of action is to keep up the public debate in a loud way.

[dragonwriter]

If an order is directed to Apple, and Apple fails to comply, the court can order sanctions against Apple for contempt.

The authorities don't have to "come for" any person (they might follow up with orders directed at particular persons, in which case those persons would be at risk of personal sanctions, as well.)