It is a remarkable moment for the technology industry, with many different companies and organisations rallying around a single company - Apple - in a major legal case against the United States government over privacy and security.
Yet behind the scenes, it took time for some of the tech companies to make the decision to support Apple. Several feared the showdown with the government was too risky and could have far-reaching implications for the tech industry if Apple lost. Those misgivings ultimately did not win the day. About 40 companies and organisations are expected to file court briefs on Thursday backing Apple as it fights a judge's order to help law enforcement break into an iPhone used by a gunman in the San Bernardino, California, terrorist attack last year.
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Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Snapchat and Yahoo! are among the tech companies expected to sign on to briefs in the case, according to people with knowledge of the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity. More than 40 individuals, including prominent security experts and academics, are also planning to sign briefs, which will focus on themes like free speech, the importance of encryption and concerns about government overreach.
The show of support - including briefs filed on Wednesday by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Access Now - is unusual in its breadth, showing that many in Silicon Valley believe that it could have profound implications on the trustworthiness of their products. "Given the years of companies' reluctance to be at the barricades around intelligence discussions, this is significant," said Jules Polonetsky, chief executive of the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry-financed think tank in Washington.
Still, several executives at tech companies supporting Apple said they were worried that Apple had picked a fight that could end up backfiring on the rest of the industry. In the days since a magistrate judge in California ordered Apple to bypass security measures on the iPhone, lawyers in some of the companies debated these issues with one another and peers at other firms.
All of the executives asked to remain anonymous because their deliberations were private, but their views are shared among others in Silicon Valley.
Keith Rabois, a venture capitalist with the firm Khosla Ventures, said he was a strong believer in privacy and encryption - "all the normal Silicon Valley views," he said - but worried that Apple could lose the case, setting a legal precedent that could force other companies to compromise the security of their products for law enforcement. "In my view, this is the wrong case to fight," Rabois said. "There are plenty of other cases with a lot less sympathetic case for the government."
For Rabois and others, the circumstances working against Apple include the iPhone's connection to a terrorist attack that left 14 people dead, rather than to a less highly charged crime. Furthermore, the iPhone was owned by the employer of the gunman, Syed Rizwan Farook, which consented to a search of the device.
Apple's defenders said the company did not pick this fight - the government did. Critics of Apple's approach believe that the company could have quietly complied with the government's request to help break into the iPhone and then taken a public stand in a more favourable case. But Apple has said that once a tool exists for extracting data from the phone, that tool cannot be made to disappear.
Yet whatever doubts Apple's allies voiced privately, they were in the end insufficient to keep a large number of big companies from signing on to the cause.
Dropbox's general counsel, Ramsey Homsany, said in a statement, "We stand against the use of broad authorities to undermine the security of a company's products."
Bruce Sewell, Apple's general counsel, said in a statement, "We are humbled by the outpouring of support we've received from our customers, our colleagues in business, non-profit organisations, the security community and many others." He added, "The groups filing briefs with the court understand, as more and more people have come to realise, that this case is not about one phone - it is about the future and how we protect our safety and our privacy." On Tuesday, Apple filed its formal objection to the government order to open up the iPhone, citing the reasons set forth in a previously filed motion.
For many tech companies that were initially concerned by Apple's opposition to opening up the iPhone in the San Bernardino case, the worries centred not only on whether this was the right case for challenging the government but also on how public perceptions of the fight might reflect on the rest of the industry, according to tech executives involved in the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A report by Pew Research Center last week said 51 per cent of Americans believed that Apple should unlock the iPhone to assist the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the case, while only 38 per cent found Apple in the right.
Some of the companies were also concerned that the relationships they had forged with the government might degrade because of Apple's battle, according to the people involved in the tech industry discussions.
In the years since the disclosures by Edward J Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who released a trove of details on US government surveillance tactics, some tech companies have been trying to educate members of Congress about online privacy practices.
Others were also anxious that Apple's defiance of the government could lead to congressional efforts to reshape, in ways unfavourable to the tech industry, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which privacy advocates and tech companies have long claimed needs an overhaul.
And these companies are watching what effect the fight could have on a proposal to establish a national commission that would explore ways to obtain encrypted data from consumers while working to safeguard users' privacy. The proposed commission, the bill for which was introduced on Monday, would be led by the House Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, and Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia.
On Monday, Apple got good news that could help soothe lingering tech industry doubts about its defence in the San Bernardino case. A federal magistrate judge in a separate drug case in New York ruled against a government request to extract data from an iPhone, a decision that could influence the San Bernardino case.
Silicon Valley's arc in supporting Apple - an initial flurry of concerns followed by an eventual coming around to the idea - is epitomised by Max Levchin, the co-founder of PayPal and chief executive of Affirm, an online financial services firm. Last week in an interview on CBS, Levchin said his views on the case over the previous several days had shifted from a "clear-cut, black-and-white" stance of helping the FBI. He has since sided with Apple.
©2016 The New York Times News Service
