No matter how you feel about iPhone backdoors, the Justice Department, and privacy at least we can all be thankful with Apple for knowing the difference between civil liberties and civil rights.

John Gruber:

The only possible explanations for this are incompetence or dishonesty on the part of the FBI.

I’m hoping yes.

Software is eating the world and only Apple’s hardware will save us.

Kieran Healy:

Apple has historically been a company with a strong desire for control and a keen eye towards its own interests, as perceived in the light of that desire to control things. That has led them to the “Walled Garden” in the older sense. The company is a bit friendlier than before, these days, but in many ways as controlling as it ever was. Now it seems that their central business interest is leading them to actually enact the vision of strongly-encrypted, private computing devices, whose content is inaccessible even to their manufacturer—and all in the face of direct opposition from the State. That’s something that many soi disant Valley anarchists have claimed to have wanted for a long time. But most of them work for or founded companies that are in the business of collecting and selling information, not hardware. Apple is a hardware company. And that’s why they’re out in front of this.

“I don’t have anything to hide” is a poor argument against the formation of a state surveillance apparatus.

– Jason Snell

John Gruber on Apple’s refusal to comply with the FBI’s demands to help them break iPhone encryption:

By fighting this, Apple is doing something risky and difficult. It would be easier, and far less risky, if they just quietly complied with the FBI. That’s what makes their very public stance on this so commendable.

Doing the right thing can be hard, but it’s also how reputations are earned and maintained.

Make sure to read Tim Cook’s public response on Apple’s website. Note also that it’s entitled a “A Message to Our Customers” and not A Message to Our Shareholders, which matches up completely with Horace Dediu’s theory of Apple as a firm and who Tim Cook & Co. are striving to please which might go a long way in explaining the lack of support from Microsoft and Google.

The Milwaukee County Executive Primary is a top two affair so both Wisconsin State Senator Chris Larson and incumbent Executive Chris Abele will be on the final ballot in April, but it’s worth noting how much more efficient Larson’s campaign has been to date:

• Larson: 48,258 votes on spending of $62,655

• Abele (inc): 47,550 votes on spending of $1.59m

SOURCE Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

People never say, “Gelngarry Glen Ross got me through high school.”

– Alec Baldwin to Molly Ringwold with respect to the lasting impact of The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Pretty in Pink