WWYD - What Would You Do?

I always found making decisions to be a sort of an art. My mother always uses the expression: “That’s a Solomon’s decision” to anticipate an unfavorable decision or to compliment someone else’s decision about a controversial issue. In one of the episodes of a Netflix’s series called Madame Secretary, the parents to a teenage girl had to make a hard decision to log out her Facebook account (probably with the “Remember Me” feature), from the parents’ tablet. Although they encountered this “accidental error” to be useful in dealing with their daughter’s first relationship with a boy, they felt they needed to stop the ‘comfort zone’ of anticipating what happened with the girl, and face the uncertainty of any parent. After careful consideration, they decide to “go dark”, log off her account from the tablet the parents used to access to monitor (secretly) her activity. Decisions -after all- are defining points in life, either for good or bad.

One of those decisions that involves an ethical dilemma is the appealing of the government, which, in the midst of the investigation of the San Bernardino’s terrorist act from last December (CBSnews.com), requests Apple to create a decryption software that could access virtually each and any part of their own iPhones. For Apple, this constitutes a major privacy issue that would violate the privacy for its customers: “The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals.”(Apple.com)

Among those we can find Facebook’s CEO, Zuckerberg: “We’re sympathetic with Apple on this one. We believe in encryption.” (wired.com). Google’s CEO –and Apple’s competitor- is also taking part in Apple’s favor, to defend the customer’s privacy, in favor of what could be considered as an ethically acceptable perspective. CEO Pichai remarked how much all of Google’s products are always created to protect customers and help in government’s task of protecting customers, “[b]ut that’s wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices & data. Could be a troubling precedent.” (wired.com)

That was one side of the story. The other side of this delicate situation is that what the government is trying to do through –even appealing to the 1879 All Writs Act- to access a cell phone that belonged to Syed Rizwan Farook, who, along with his wife, “shot and killed 14 people and injured 21 others at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California on Dec. 2, 2015, before being shot to death by police” (cbsnews.com). The government has solid reasons to believe that Farook’s phone keeps record to some potential members of crime and terrorism organizations. At this point, the iPhone remains locked, with no access to the authorities, so they cannot access the valuable information inside the phone. Many valuable pieces of investigation –that could ultimately prevent the government in avoiding future attacks- cannot be accessed. According to the Attorneys in charge of the request to Apple, “To the contrary, the Order [to unlock the phone] allows Apple to retain custody of its software at all times, and it gives Apple flexibility in the manner it provides assistance. In fact, the software never has to come into the government’s custody.” (Decker, Donahue et al., p.7)

To one side claiming to defend the ethical and moral responsibility of preserving the privacy of their customers, we have another side, claiming to have access to valuable evidence for protection on potential future damage to citizens, which can be considered a genuine ethical and moral responsibility, as well.

Without further delay, I ask you: What would you do and why?

Thanks for reading this post.

Carlos