This is likely a jab at Obama, since Tim Cook is probably sick of all the NSA and FBI spooks plugging black boxes into his servers, not to mention how it's illegal for him to even complain about it publicly. The scary thing is that I'm no longer a bonafide paranoiac for expressing an opinion like this. I'm probably right.
This is certainly a jab at Obama, who came to Silicon Valley today to tell us all that the government can "keep us safe" if we just let them take our personal data from private companies. Obama has been pushing a plan for "cybersecurity" that involves expanding the NSA spying program and making legal many of the things Edward Snowden revealed them to be doing apparently illegally.
I'm politically liberal and voted for Obama twice but the man is fucking lying to us about cyber security. The real solutions to security involve encryption and what Obama is suggesting is that they can protect us by monitoring more.
Tim Cook is calling him out as a liar without expressly saying it. I wish he would. We need more prominent people to call attention to how much we are being lied to, because too many people buy the BS as truth.
I would be careful about calling policy disagreements "lies".
Keep in mind Bill Clinton and his admin did plenty of horrible stuff as well (communications decency act, DMCA, the clipper and v-chip shenanigans, high strength crypto as a munition, the hounding of Phil Zimmerman and PGP, operation sundevil, etc.
My point is that digital privacy is not a "liberal" or "conservative" issue, it's a new concern that seems to have adherents across the political spectrum.
Both democrats and republicans have been strong supporters of government surveillance and stomping on digital privacy rights. There is no mainstream political party taking up the privacy mantra yet en large because the people of the USA apparently don't want it.
It's our job to change that, but that requires changing people's minds that their privacy is worth risking a successful terrorist attack (which is how everyone in the mainstream US perceives the trade off).
Thanks for those examples from Clinton Era, I was 15 when he left office so I know only a little of his legacy.
I am hard on Obama on cybersecurity because, after watching Citizen Four and countless CCC talks with Jacob Appelbaum et al, I just don't believe he is unaware of the damage to security his proposals will make. I suppose he could genuinely believe that more state intervention in our digital lives is ultimately the right call for our security, but I feel like the president would be informed enough to know better. But perhaps he is just in a bubble that makes it hard to see how harmful their security measures are.
Either way I agree that the issue is a citizen's issue and not a liberal or conservative one. Both parties have been failing to look our for their constituents and I feel like a true people's progressive party would be an important force to disrupt that pattern.
I guess I should be careful about accusing people of lying however, as it could derail my message when the specifics of lie vs bad idea are really not at issue. Thanks for the comment.
To explain further, for the downvoters, Apple is trying to position itself as "the company that safeguards your privacy (for those that can afford it)" because its their key point of differentiation with Google.
Its very unlikely that Tim Cook would make a statement like this unless it is in line with their marketing message.
