Scarborough Rips Apple’s Fight Against Order to Unlock S.B. Shooter’s iPhone
RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
BRZEZINSKI: "Apple is planning to fight an order to help federal investigators access an iPhone that was used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. I mean, does anyone —"
SCARBOROUGH: "That’s outrageous."
BRZEZINSKI: "A U.S. Magistrate ruled yesterday that apple must provide reasonable assistance to the FBI. In a message to customers, apple says it cooperated with the FBI investigation but argues the government is asking for something the company does not have and considers too dangerous to create. >> Too dangerous? With us now, the president of the council on foreign relations, Richard Haass. Too dangerous? This is outrageous. This is outrageous, Richard."
HAASS: "Apple is going to have to find a way that it also looks to be not just, you know, beholden to the world of privacy and libertarianism but it has to be a citizen of the United States and we’ve got to find that balance between privacy and collective security. It seems they’re too much on one side of that."
SCARBOROUGH: "It seems by engaging in this excess, playing to the cheap seats in the stands, which they are doing, they are playing to the cheap seats in the stand —"
BRZEZINSKI: "They don’t need to."
SCARBOROUGH: "They are risking a larger backlash that will have the federal government step in and do what Dianne Feinstein politely asked them to do right after Paris, right after San Bernardino."
HAASS: "They don’t want to get in this if god forbid there’s another San Bernardino or Paris and people are using encrypted iPhones. The backlash would be tremendous, not just apple but basically this entire industry has to think about how again they balance their political instincts and their devotion to privacy and commercial interests with the fact that we have collect I security interests as a society. It seems the pendulum has gone way too far towards the individual privacy thing. They have to find a much more realistic balance. So, you’re right, they will have rules written for them that they won’t like."
BRZEZINSKI: "Maybe they could be invasive like poll their customers, because they have our data anyway, all of these companies, and ask them what their customers think about being able to create something that would allow us to see the phone that was used by the terrorists in Paris. I am sure most of the customers, if not all of them, would support it. That’s wrong with apple?"
SCARBOROUGH: "That’s what’s so outrageous is that all of these high-tech companies —"
BRZEZINSKI: "They’re invasive."
SCARBOROUGH: "They give you lectures about privacy when they are the most invasive people in our lives ever. Whether you talk about apple or Google or you name it. They’re the most invasive corporations for individual rights of Americans and they’re reaching you."
BRZEZINSKI: "Can I e-mail you a receipt in? This e-mail gives me so much information, I’ll —"
SCARBOROUGH: "Walking down the street, a Google alert, would lie like to buy the pink socks you’re looking at in the window right now? There’s a word I can’t say on the air."
BRZEZINSKI: "I think I’ll change phones. I’m going to change phones."
SCARBOROUGH: "I swear to god, apple — if apple puts this — again, playing to the cheap seats above America’s national security, at some point I throw this away."
BRZEZINSKI: "Get over yourself."
FORD: "What apple is doing in a lot of way aides the Donald Trump argument, it aides the anti-establishment argument. But this is a big, big argument, as Richard knows, occurring between government and the high tech community about what’s permissible around privacy, what’s not. This issue here, apple, because it’s so big and everybody either affiliated or has one of these things, this will have repercussions more than other debates we’ve seen over the last six to 12 months.
HAASS: "Odds are at some point some terrorists are —"
FORD: "No doubt about it —"
HAASS: "Going to do something bad. Turns out they will have apple or some other phone and there will be a tremendous backlash."
SCARBOROUGH: "What message is apple sending to ISIS today? What messages are they sending to the next San Bernardino shooter? What message are they sending to terrorists across America and the globe? Buy apple, they will defend you even after you shoot and kill innocent Americans."
HAASS: "Like I said, I think they have the balance wrong, it’s unsustainable and if I were running one of these companies, what they need to do is say, look, we understand what you’re saying, let’s try to meet you halfway. I don’t think they can insist on a pendulum that basically says privacy is the only thing that counts and it’s not a responsible position."
FORD: "This is post facto. It’s — it’s not like they’re asking to tap into something ongoing."
SCARBOROUGH: "They are dead. They are committed a terrorist act in America and apple is still putting their rights as dead terrorists above the rights of living Americans. And law enforcement officers who want to actually stop the next San Bernardino attack."
