Nt1310 Unit 2 Individual Assignment

Draft 2
Dear FBI, How comfortable would you be with a government having access to your personal information and data on your phone? A recent incident involving a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, sparked a controversy between Apple and the Federal Bureau of investigation. Following the attack by two individuals committed an act of terror, killing 14 people, the iPhone belonging to one of the terrorists was found. As you may know, your organization is requesting the court for Apple's forced assistance in weakening the encryption on an IPhone related to the San Bernardino terrorist attacks and supposedly has vital information on it. These terrorist attacks were performed by ISIS's lone wolves, named Syed Rizwan Farook, who owns the phone and Tashfeen Malik, his wife. In my opinion, the phone shouldn't be cracked for three reasons. First of all because it undermines America's founding principles and it
breaks article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy." Two other reasons include that the backdoor could be a potential danger to other IPhone users, and because the question we must ask, can we be certain that the information which will be obtained will be of value to your organization. First of all, Apple should not have to weaken the encryption of the phone because it has "a chilling effect on our First Amendment rights and undermines our country's founding principles (author) " states Tom Cook, CEO of Apple.
This shows that weakening the encryption and even cracking the phone will break other people's rights to privacy and it would undermine America's founding principles and UDHR article 12 saying that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy." With the greatest respect, I ask you to consider that the right to privacy is inalienable. This information was derived from the Los Angeles Times. A second reason to why the phone shouldn’t have to be cracked, is about the certainty that the data sought needed to investigate the terrorist attacks actually is on the phone? According to (Article title and author) there is no 100% guarantee that the information your organization wants is actually on the phone. This question was asked by David Auerbach, a software expert at the think tank New
America. This point leads into my last reason as to why the phone should not be cracked is because it would have the potential to breach the privacy of many other IPhone owners. As I said, the government is forcing Apple to crack the phone. CEO Tim Cook challenged the government's order, which he labelled “an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers.” Cracking the phone of Syed Rizwan Farook can jeopardize the privacy of many other IPhone users, as there would be no guarantee that the FBI would only use it for this specific situation. How can we be sure that this ‘backdoor’ wouldn’t be abused? However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors argue that "allowing wrongdoers to conceal their intentions or evade detection by hiding behind strong encryption is a threat to the public." To be fair, the terrorist were wrongdoers, however should everyone pay the price for their actions, by having their privacy jeopardized? To summarize the reasons why the encryption of the phone should not be weakened is first of all this act violates the founding principles of America and Article 12 of the UDHR, which protects the rights of the citizens, including privacy. Secondly, the question of the amount of useful information actually is stored on the phone and lastly the fact that the backdoor to the iPhone would have the potential to breach the privacy of any iPhone user. I hope that this will convince you that cracking the phone has more negative implications than positive outcomes.