Good summary

Facts please

Rich, Apple has not committed a crime Your analogy is wrong and your answer is unconstitutional.

I've been around as long as you have in tech, however, and much of Microsoft's bad rap is well-deserved IMO. Every major version of Internet Explorer up to seven caused major incompatibility problems - many of them related to DirectX (which fortunately Microsoft finally had the good sense to abandon). It's well known that Microsoft ripped off many major ideas from other vendors and incorporated them as their own - starting with DOS. "Pirates of the Silicon Valley" is an eye opener to both Microsoft AND Apple. Windows ME, Windows CE, Windows Vista - all utter disasters I had to deal with personally. And their legal restrictions and licensing practices are anything but reasonable IMO.

Does MS make some quality products? Yes. Have they been squeaky clean? Not by a long shot. Their coercive business and licensing practices are well known and only started to fail when Google and Apple took the mobile industry by storm. Microsoft still tops out in that segment at about 2% market share.

Besides where is all the NSA money going? If the government wants to code cracked, it is their responsibility and they have to make sure that it is not used for any other purpose.

That's not the point at all. The point is that this 'magical key' does not exist. It's impossible. The only way to bypass the security would be to force-install a new version of the operating system that decrypts the data during installation and leaves it unencrypted... presumably, by taking the SSD out of the thing or something and doing it manually.

Let's be honest, if they produce something like that, I could, for example, do that for someone with that tool. So could many other people that have the skills I have as long as they had the tool.

My own and my entire family's background was stolen from OPM along with 21 million others - where we grew up, friends we associated with, teachers, obviously, our financial backgrounds, etc., with our security clearances. OPM didn't bother to protect that, so why would anyone believe the government would protect this "key".

A subpoena requires information to be provided in the course of the investigation, it can't be issued to a civilian "requiring" them to PERFORM the investigation, and to produce WORK PRODUCT that the investigation needs.

You know what, people like myself and my associates don't work for the government as civil servants, because frankly, they don't pay enough. With that they offer their technical folks, they are going to get the C & D students, that's it. Not the ones that were writing code by the time they were 7.

There is a very vast difference between complying with a court order to provide information supporting a reasonable doubt suspicion, for example, and requiring a private company to do their investigation for them. Ayn Rand would roll over in her grave.

And no, it's not "only" for this investigation, because the NY PD last night said on the news that they "had at least 189 iPhones in storage that they also need access to for crimes ranging from murder to identity theft"... so, my original thought was on this, it starts with a nickel-terrorist that obviously didn't have a network behind him or he wouldn't borrow a couple of $450 plastic-receiver AR-15s you can buy at Walmart from his neighbor, you would never take that risk if you were really "operational".. you wouldn't drop the kids off with grandma & grandpa to go on jihad.

The Obama administration really, really wants this to be 'workplace violence'. The phone is a $99 iPhone 5c from 4 years ago, its sad that with the vast resources of the government, they need 'help' to do something with that. I also doubt he would have been planning workplace violence on his employer-owned cell phone (he worked for San Bernardino County). This is more about hoping against hope that some coworker called him a rag head or a camel jockey on a text and they are hoping they can prove its workplace violence.

They need it to be official.

PRISM, when leaked by Snowden was already a legacy program. Who knows what they are capable of now.

Actually, Apple specifically took out the back doors that were in prior versions of the product and advertised heavily that they had done so - otherwise this wouldn't be an issue. The problem in this case is that the Government is trying to tell Apple what features must be available in their phones, i.e. surveillance back doors. That's no different than the ACA.

He's a lawyer, lawyers don't "do" anything, they only require other people to do the work of society.

I'll never vote for a lawyer.

Ted is on the side of the law on this, but the law should be changed.

Egad!
For a person billed as a constitutionalist, Cruz has made a really bad, sticky, blunder. As I have posted many times, I am not an engineer so I may get the technicalities wrong, but from what I can gather, the government is actually demanding that Apple create a new product that will destroy the salability of their current products. Here comes the old analogy maker again: "Hey, Mr. Apple, I need you to test the new gallows. Will you kindly hang yourself so we can be sure the bad person doesn't get off?"

if you can unlock phones, why does the NSA need such a big data dump from all of us? wasn't that it's purpose?

That is what I heard.( 70 previous phones decrypted). I also heard that the public/ media has NOT seen the warrant. If that is true, all of this bloviating is nothing more than speculation. Further, I heard that the possible distinction with THIS case is that law enforcement didnt just want Apple to open the phone in their presence ( to maintain tbe chain of custody) but that law enforcement wanted possession of how they ( law enforcement) could decrypt future devices themselves. That would make some sense out of the resistance. But until the details if the warrant are known this is all speculation.

Its not the phone itself. Its the encryption. There is no existing back door for the encryption technique. i think the comment by Mitch here describes the situation:
"Apple doesn’t manage the encryption keys to encrypt data. The news stories is saying encrypted data not a locked screen. Data is encrypted with key pairs that are managed by companies external to Apples control and if a back door existed, it would negate the entire reason for the technology in the first place. Once encrypted, you must have the private key to decrypt the data, period. These people stating that Apple must have a back door, they don’t know… it’s a guess… Do they have a back door to unlock a locked screen, I would assume they would. Do they have a back door to decrypt data that their customer encrypted, I would assume not."

The devil is in the details, so maybe there's something different about THIS particular phone, but I heard in the news that Apple has already opened people's phones 70 different situations in response to court orders.

So, Apple has done this 70 times previously, but THIS time is different. Apple insists that this time is giving gov't a backdoor. Why wasn't that true in the other cases? I do not see that unlocking that one phone is an issue.

Yes he does. Right out of the book "The Dictator's Handbook."

Cruz disagreed, insisting while Apple had a "serious argument that they should not be forced to put a backdoor in every cellphone everyone has," law enforcement had the better argument. The FBI, Cruz insisted, got a search order, which was "consistent with the Fourth Amendment." Apple, Cruz claimed, was being told to "open this phone, not Anderson's phone, not everyone's here, open this phone."

Cruz didn't mention that the iPhone of the attacker belonged the county health department, because the attacker was a government health inspector. A discussion about whether local (and larger) governments should be handing out phones to their employees that they can't access when necessary seems a lot more appropriate in this instance than one about whether the government should get a way in to everyone's phones.

In his letter, Cook had already rejected arguments that "building a backdoor for just one iPhone is a simple, clean-cut solution." That, Cook explained, ignored "both the basics of digital security and the significance of what the government is demanding in this case." He compared the software Apple was being ordered to develop to a master key that was "capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks."

While Cruz insisted Apple should comply with the order forthwith, Apple also has the right to appeal, which it has said it would be doing. Cruz insisted last night that the government order, and the abrogation of the right to the security of our personal papers and effects from government access that came with it, was consistent with the Fourth Amendment. But the case could go all the way to the Supreme Court.

In other portions of the town hall, Cruz argued he was a "constitutionalist" who would appoint the best (conservative) justices. His answer on Apple doesn't bode well for the Fourth Amendment. It was much easier for Cruz to call the judicial order for Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk, to perform the duties required of her, "lawless" because of the perceived abrogation of her rights in that instance.

Apple's argument, however, may not be as clear as it sounds either. Shane Harris at The Daily Beast reports that Apple has unlocked phones for authorities on at least 70 occasions in the last eight years. The feds, Harris reported, had also admitted to having developed a method to get through the encryption of one version of the iPhone iOS. That appears to undercut the government's use of the All Writs Act of 1789, which requires such an order as Apple received to be a last resort for method.

There was a time when this would have caused a second Revolution.

interestingly, they have brought the war to the people. can they win the war of ideas? according to the people I am fighting with on FB (many Os) I'd say ....no

I hope not. I see him standing more for the Constitution. This time I hope you are wrong & I'm right but time will tell. :)