Apple is currently battling the FBI in court over the U.S. government’s insistence that Apple help law enforcement unlock an encrypted iPhone that belonged to a mass killer. Now the New York Times reports, “Apple employees are already discussing what they will do if ordered to help law enforcement authorities. Some say they may balk at the work, while others may even quit their high-paying jobs rather than undermine the security of the software they have already created, according to more than a half-dozen current and former Apple employees.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook strongly objects to creating software that could unlock the phone, and Apple’s lawyers have said, “Such conscription is fundamentally offensive to Apple?s core principles and would pose a severe threat to the autonomy of Apple and its engineers.”
Some legal experts suggest that if all the developers who could possibly write code to unlock the iPhone quit their jobs at Apple, the company would not have to comply with the order.
