US agency (NSA) “collecting phone records“

[Duchess]

an NBA owner's private conversation/musings/opinions were made public.

That really irked me when all that went down. It was the principle of it, not defense of that racist old fuck.

[HairOfTheDog]

Donald Sterling's mistress leaking a recorded phone conversation to the media isn't a comparable issue, in my opinion.

His mistress was a greedy bitch who leaked private info to the public; info which, once in the public domain, put Sterling in hot water with the players and the league and cost him his job (though he made a fortune in the end).

That's nothing like the government listening in on private conversations or demanding private companies to assist in criminal investigations against their customers. Sterling's case was instead comparable to a teacher sending flirty "for your eyes only" texts to his/her high school student and getting fired when the student shared them with others and they went viral.

Anyway, Apple has cooperated with the FBI and tried to unlock the phone, but it can't be done without developing an encryption key. I understand the company's concerns about opening that door, but I think they'll end up doing it and I think they should -- but not without the legal assurances they seek and not without making sure their customers know the company's commitment to anti-hacking security for their customers is sincere.

Every presidential candidate still in the race has said that he/she would work with law enforcement and technology heads to form a partnership and cross-the-board guidelines regarding private technology cooperation in federal criminal investigations. I think that's overdue and this case will probably get that ball rolling.

[Duchess]

This story is a headline everyday now. I may have misunderstood something but it reads to me like the police screwed themselves out of getting access to that phone by continuing to try different codes when they should have immediately gotten someone who knows what they are doing in order to gain access. Tim Cook does not want to create a "master key" and I don't think he should be compelled to.