As part of its publicity push ahead of its interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook tonight, ABC News has posted an excerpt of Cook's discussion with ABC News reporter David Muir.
In the clip, Cook discusses the NSA's surveillance operations and says that the Government does not have any direct access to Apple's servers and that "they would have to cart us out in a box" for that to happen.
DAVID MUIR: "What is your biggest concern — with the surveillance program here in this country?"
TIM COOK: "I've been pushing very, very hard to open the books and be totally transparent. Much of what has been said isn't true; there is no back door. The government doesn't have access to our servers. They would have to cart us out in a box for that. And that just will not happen. We feel that — strongly about it. But I do want to be transparent, because I think transparency would help put everything in perspective."
DAVID MUIR: "Do you think Americans, Tim, would be more at ease if you could tell them more?"
TIM COOK: "I do."
This morning, ABC ran a longer preview of the interview during Good Morning America and the full piece will air tonight at 6:30 PM Eastern on World News with Diane Sawyer.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)Even if the NSA / the government promised they'd stop indiscriminate spying/eavesdropping, would anyone believe them now?
Anyway, how does Tim Cook know there is no "back door"? We've already seen how the NSA and other similar agencies can gain access to data without being detected. And as noted in a comment above, now they are intercepting iPhones before they even get to customers, that's about as big of a door as you could imagine. Also, most major companies, and this probably includes Apple, do not encrypt their data when they send it between their own servers (which they do all the time). The NSA has been tapping these intracorporate lines as well, probably without the knowledge of those companies at all.
When they get their claws into major providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc., they basically have access to everything traveling over the internet in the U.S. And we now know that the NSA paid off the people who made RSA encryption (http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/20/5231006/nsa-paid-10-million-for-a-back-door-into-rsa-encryption-according-to) to insert a back door so they can break that encryption at will. And if you think that's the only thing of that type they have going, you are very naive.
TIM COOK: "I do."
That says it all.
Why is this shuffled off to "politics"? Presidents and congresspeople of both parties (including independents) have supported and enabled these programs.
Anyway, how does Tim Cook know there is no "back door"? We've already seen how the NSA and other similar agencies can gain access to data without being detected. And as noted in a comment above, now they are intercepting iPhones before they even get to customers, that's about as big of a door as you could imagine. Also, most major companies, and this probably includes Apple, do not encrypt their data when they send it between their own servers (which they do all the time). The NSA has been tapping these intracorporate lines as well, probably without the knowledge of those companies at all.
When they get their claws into major providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc., they basically have access to everything traveling over the internet in the U.S. And we now know that the NSA paid off the people who made RSA encryption (http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/20/5231006/nsa-paid-10-million-for-a-back-door-into-rsa-encryption-according-to) to insert a back door so they can break that encryption at will. And if you think that's the only thing of that type they have going, you are very naive.
They've done it before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A . And I'm willing to bet they're still doing it.
The government, banks, retailers, airlines, telecommunication companies, ISP's, etc. all collect your personal data. The fear that the "government" is using it for some malicious intent is where people are thinking they're more important than they are.
If the government was really all powerful and all knowing, sucking our data and using it for some purposes we don't realize, then why are there any criminals or dead-beat dads that seem to escape prosecution for years or forever?
To have a society function, people have to participate, including at times giving up some of their individual rights for the betterment of the society as a whole. I agree that the government, which has grown far bigger than it should or needs to be, has more power than it should or needs to have, but worrying that your phone calls and emails are being read by some government hack, so that they can then come get you for being a miscreant since you said or wrote something bad, is just paranoia driven by hollywood portrayal of how the government is controlling us.
Why worry about restricting government at all, let's all just sit up webcams in every room with full government control, we don't have anything to hide.