Pretexts

Marco Arment asserts that the FBI’s demands to Apple are about more than a specific iPhone.

…this most likely has very little to do with the specific crime or iPhone that the FBI is citing in this case. It’s their excuse to establish precedent and permanent backdoors for themselves…

Like the NSA, they believe that they’re above the law, and the federal government and courts have confirmed that they indeed are. They couldn’t care less that they’re weakening our encryption for others to break as well — they consider that an acceptable casualty. They believe they own us, our property, and our data, all the time.

Yep. Splitting hairs over the differences between the backdoor the FBI seeks in this case and encryption keys is a distraction. Any differences between brute force access (in this case) and encryption backdoors will be quickly thrown aside as soon as either becomes accessible to the security state.

Update

Where Marco’s post is strongly worded, Rich Mogull at Macworld goes into more depth about the transparent attempt of the government to use this specific case to establish precedent for future surveillance.