Apple CEO Tim Cook has spoken candidly to TIME about his on-going battle against the FBI – with the US law enforcement agency putting him and his company under immense pressure to bypass the iPhone encryption of San Bernardino shooting suspect Syed Rizwan Farook – comparing the ordeal to a “bad dream”. Cook also expressed his dismay that the US government should be the one to stand up for the civil liberties of US citizens, not him.
“I never expected to be in this position,” Cook confessed in the interview with TIME magazine. “The government should always be the one defending civil liberties. And there’s a role reversal here. I mean I still feel like I’m in another world a bit, that I’m in this bad dream in some wise.”
“But at the end of the day, we’re going to fight the good fight not only for our customers but for the country,” he said. “We’re in this bizarre position where we’re defending the civil liberties of the country against the government. Who would have ever thought this would happen?”
Cook took the opportunity to stress that, despite reluctance – “Fighting the government is not a thing we choose to do,” he laments – his fight against the FBI’s efforts to bypass Apple’s encryption will continue, because, “at the end of the day—and none of us would have been able to sleep at night” if Apple caved.
Image courtesy of Mashable.
