[sjwright]

I think you massively overestimate the power of the US government. What would they do if Apple said no? Shut them down? Put Tim Cook in jail? Never going to happen. That perception of power might exist against mere civilians, but not against the big multinationals.

Apple has engineered their products to be unbreakable by Apple. That says a lot about their desire to cooperate!

Apple's billions held internationally aren't hidden, everyone knows where it is. And it was never money destined to be "on-shore" in the first place – it's profits from retail sales which occurred in Europe and elsewhere. Their offices in Ireland have the Apple logo on them and they're one of Ireland's largest taxpayers. Everything they do is on the public record. That money wasn't expatriated from the USA, the IRS isn't owed any of it.

[glenneroo]

You underestimate the power of the NSA, CIA, FBI and in general the US government. They don't need to imprison the CEO or shut them down, there are subtle yet nefarious ways of getting what they want. Anyways let's forget this part, it's just speculation from both of us.

According to their privacy policy[0], they comply with requests by the government for user data and inform the user unless gagged.

> In the second half of 2016, Apple received between 5,750 and 5,999 National Security Orders.

If their products are unbreakable, how can they provide this data to the government?

[0]: https://www.apple.com/privacy/government-information-request...

[panda88888]

The data stored on newer iOS devices with hardware security enclave are unbreakable even by Apple, but the iCloud backups are accessible by Apple. That’s probably how the requests are fulfilled.