I’m not sure if Apple’s motivations in refusing to give the FBI unfettered access to iPhones is altruistic or selfish, nor does it matter to me; I believe that what Apple is doing in this current case, as a general principle, should be the model to follow.

We effectively have little or no Fourth Amendment protection at this point, at least in regard to the government accessing our private data—our “papers,” as it is classically termed. The FISA courts are a joke, essentially rubber-stamping each request. It is not judicial oversight when the judge is complicit and agrees to mass surveillance no matter what.

Will allowing devices like phones or forms of encrypted Internet access allow terrorists to work unimpeded? Perhaps, but there are two huge caveats.

First, terrorists are hardly limited to these forms of security. All it takes is a pre-arranged cypher (A seemingly random communication of almost any type sent at a certain time of day from this person rather than that one equals a call to carry out an attack at x time at y location) which is used only once and then changed, or reliance on carefully discreet personal communication only, or any number of other methods, to confound surveillance and assure security. Opening iPhones will not greatly affect terrorists who are serious about security.

And second, as the saying goes, freedom isn’t free. The founders themselves recognized that greater individual freedom from government overreach would cause greater risk, but that the increased risk was far less important than the potential of losing civil liberties. We’ve become far too willing to surrender those liberties for that modicum of security.

I am not at all impressed by the claims that Obama is a constitution scholar; he seems to be a fairly bad one, especially where privacy is involved. I rather hope he is never appointed to the Supreme Court. But we as citizens must not be cowed by claims of terror and other violence will overwhelm us. What the government is doing has only a limited effect on thwarting determined terrorists from attacking, but it has an overwhelming and frightening impact on our freedoms and liberties.