You won’t believe it, but the US attorney general accused Apple of “promoting censorship and oppression” in Russia and China.
How did Mr. Barr come to such amazing conclusions?
You have to start from afar. In December 2019, at a military training base in Pensacola, Florida, Mohammed Alshamrani, a pilot from Saudi Arabia who trained there, shot three of his fellow practitioners. In addition, the terrorist shot portraits of Trump and “one of the previous presidents” and “shouted out statements criticizing US military operations abroad.” Now it turns out that Alshamrani sent extremist messages on social networks, left comments of the same content, and a further investigation found among his classmates 17 more students who similarly distributed jihadist and anti-American materials and even child pornography on social networks.
It was about this story that the prosecutor attacked Apple at a briefing for journalists on May 18.
Well, that is, the American authorities invited 18 open jihadists to study at a military base from a friendly Saudi Arabia and didn’t even raise an eyebrow, but Apple is to blame! The logic of the US Attorney General still does not seem obvious to you? Listen on.
What is Apple to blame? The fact that the terrorist did not give access to the iPhone and the Prosecutor General had to spend four months to unlock the phone and - a surprise! - find out that he really corresponded with comrades from the next branchAl Qaeda *. Moreover, he was associated with them since 2015, that is, long before he was invited to master the profession of military pilot in the United States.
But Apple is to blame! That is, the logic of the prosecutor’s office is this: the company cooperates with “authoritarian regimes”, but refuses with us! Why are we worse?
Now, if the company itself immediately unlocked the phone for us, then ... And what, in fact, would be? Would the Prosecutor General's Office find out what the military and intelligence should have figured out five years ago? Whole four months earlier?
Moreover, according to American law, Apple would have been obliged to provide the Prosecutor General with access to the gadget by a court decision, but the Prosecutor General’s office was obviously unable to obtain such permission, which the Prosecutor General Barr complains in his speech - so, they say, and so, here we have it maybe it’s still full of suspicious phones, what do we now, for each in court, ask for permission?
Barra’s logic is striking: Apple has moved its servers to Russia and China, and here, where freedom and democracy do not want to cooperate!
There is, however, a nuance: the company moved its servers with user databases to Russia and China only because the legislation of Russia and China requires it.
Barr, therefore, requires Apple not to comply with any laws - not just in "authoritarian regimes", but even in his "free and respecting human rights" homeland.
Note that he does not require the military department to check the social networks of those whom they call to their military bases (which anyone can do without any permission from the court) in order to check who they call them at all to see if they are jihadists.
No, why, it’s enough to mention Russia and China - the average person reading the news diagonally will still not understand anything, he will only understand that Russia and China are to blame again.
“Beat your own so that strangers are afraid,” the representative of our Foreign Ministry comments, and this, of course, is true. In the United States, where total surveillance of citizens, starting from Hoover, is a good tradition (Soviet people's commissariats nervously smoke aside), there are no problems in spitting on any human rights when it is necessary for freedom and democracy. Of course, the way the American ruling class understands freedom and democracy - that is, the freedom of this ruling class to totally dominate and democracy for the population, who is free to choose between one of the wings of a dual political party every four years.
So attacks on Apple are needed in order to once again throw a stone at the garden of "authoritarian regimes" and, in order not to get up twice, to explain to the population who really need to be afraid and hate.
But it's not only that. This, again, as usual, is about the American election campaign that is not always obvious to us. Barr is a member of the Republican Party, "Trump Man." Apple refused to sponsor the Republican Party this year, and Tim Cook gave an interview in which he criticized Trump. Trump requires Apple to move production from China to the United States, but for Apple it is too expensive. Silicon Valley is one of the key pillars of the Democrats, and California as a whole is one of the most populous states, completely “blue”. Residents of the “red states” often refer to the population of the San Francisco Bay approximately as in our province to Muscovites. So if there is even the slightest reason to once again blame the largest IT company for all the deadly sins - the Republicans, rest assured, they will not miss it.
And that the military spoiled 18 jihadists - well, why remember this when there are such convenient Russia and China.
* “Al-Qaeda” - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of February 14, 2003.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the publisher.