Cartoon: I’m an iPhone, I’m the government

At first glance it seems pretty ridiculous that Apple isn’t helping the FBI break into a phone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters. It seems like such a clear cut case. Yes, Syed Farook was one of the shooters who claimed allegiance to ISIS, he’s not even alive to have his civil liberties violated and the phone wasn’t even owned by him, it belongs to the County of San Bernardino.

If you dig a little deeper, you find that this case is about much more than just one phone, as the FBI and the Department of Justice claim. There are plenty of other instances where the government has tried and failed to convince Apple to break into an iPhone to help with an investigation. There are even more cases where state and local law enforcement are trying to unlock what is in an iPhone. Methinks the government guessed this would be the perfect precedent-setting case that would help them in many investigations to come. (They were so determined, they even enlisted the San Bernardino victims’ families before Apple refused to help them access Farook’s iPhone.)

Despite their attempts to portray themselves as the bastion of civil liberties and American Goodness, remember, Apple is the corporation that keeps about $181 billion overseas because they don’t want to pay taxes in the good ol’ US of A. Enjoy the cartoon, watch it on your password-protected iPhone and remember, you can join me behind-the-scenes and get prints and other goodies here on my Patreon page!