Tim Cook has picked a fight with the US government and Silicon Valley is joining his side.
From Google Inc to Facebook Inc, the industry's biggest names rallied around Apple Inc's chief executive officer after he vowed to resist a court order demanding it help unlock the iPhone of a shooter in a terrorist attack. Cook described the request as an "unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers" and called for a public debate.
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The escalation with the FBI, which has been pushing for access to mobile devices since Apple tightened its encryption in late 2014, galvanized the company's US peers and forced them to choose between helping the government fight crime and protecting their customers' privacy. The decision in the Apple case could apply to the broader tech industry and it may spur requests from China and other nations that want similar abilities to access users' encrypted content.
