Tim, thanks for doing this. It's good to be here. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having us in your office. I don't think we've ever done an interview in your office before. I'm not sure I've ever done an interview in the office. Well, I know this is an important issue, so we'll dive right in. Thank you. As we sit here, you know some of the families of the victims in San Bernardino have now come out in support of the judge's order that Apple helped the FBI unlock that iPhone. One family reportedly saying were angry and confused as to why Apple is refusing to do this. What would you say to those families tonight, David? They have our deepest sympathy. What they've been through, no one should have to go through. Apple has cooperated with the FBI fully in this case. They came to us and asked us for all the information we had on this phone, and we gave everything that we had. We went further than that and volunteered engineers to help them and gave them numerous suggestions about how

they might learn more about this particular case, but this case is not about my phone. This case is about the future. What is at stake here is can the government compel Apple to write software that we believe would make hundreds of millions of customers vulnerable around the world, including the US, and also trample civil liberties that are at the basic foundation of what this country was made on. And you have to write that system in order to unlock that phone. Yes, yes, this is so. We have no more information about this phone. The only way to get information, at least currently, the only way we know, would be to write a piece of software that we view as sort of the software equivalent of cancer. We think it's bad news to write. We would never write it. We have never written it. And that is what is at stake here. You're aware of the polling on this, the Pew poll this week that showed 51 percent of Americans say Apple should unlock the phone, the new Reuters poll just today showing nearly half understand where you're coming from, but

this is clearly a country divided on this. What do you say to the folks who say you should write that software? You should help unlock the phone. Well, this is not about a poll. This is about the future. And what I have seen is people understand what is at stake here. An increasing number support us. We've had support from politicians, to the ones that grab me the most. I have gotten thousands of emails since this occurred, and the largest single category of people are from the military. These are men and women who fight for our freedom and our liberty, and they want us to stand up and be counted on this issue for them. Are you reading those letters, those emails, every day? I'm reading every one of them. They are very heartfelt and very emotional. This is our country. This country is about life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's about freedom of expression and freedom of speech. These are core principles of America. The FBI, though, says it believes that Syed Farook used that phone to communicate.

with his wife as an accomplice, and I'm curious, do you struggle at all with the possibility that there could be information on that phone that could reveal other plots, other people who were involved in planning the San Bernardino attack? David, if we knew a way to get the information on the phone that we haven't already given, if we knew a way to do this that would not expose hundreds of millions of other people to issues, we would obviously do it. But again, this is not about one phone; this is about the future. But the central question, and I'm curious, does it keep you up? Could this phone potentially save lives and prevent another terrorist attack? The information on it, we don't know that there's any information on the phone; we don't know whether there is or there isn't, and the FBI doesn't know whether there is or there isn't. What we do know is we passed all of the information that we had on the phone, and to get additional information on it, or at least what the FBI would like us to do now, would expose

hundreds of millions of people to issues. I want to get to what the FBI director James Comey has said. He said it's not about a slippery slope; it's about, quote, 14 people who were slaughtered and many more had their lives ruined. Maybe the phone holds the clue to finding more terrorists; maybe it doesn't. But we can't look the survivors in the eye and ourselves if we don't follow any possible lead out there. Do you understand where he's coming from? I do understand where he's coming from, and this is an incredibly complex issue, but it is about the future. Think about this: if a court compels Apple to write this piece of software, then we then to place a backdoor in the iPhone. We believe it does put hundreds of millions of customers at risk. In addition, if a court can ask us to write this piece of software, think about what else they could ask us to write. Maybe it's an operating system for surveillance; maybe it's the ability for law enforcement to turn on the camera. I mean

I don't know where this stops, but I do know that this is not what should be happening in this country. This is not what should be happening in America. If there should be a law that compels us to do it, it should be passed out in the open, and the people of America should get a voice in that. The right place for that debate to occur is in Congress. But you speak of that backdoor, Tim, and John Miller, the head of counterterrorism, New York City Police Department, has said if an executive at Apple had a member of their family kidnapped, they would have their best engineers working on opening that phone, and it would have been done in a very short amount of time. Is that fair? No, David, it's not like we have information on this phone in the next office over. We have no other information on this phone, none. The only way we know to get additional information is to write a piece of software that is the software equivalent of cancer. That is what is at stake here. Let me ask you this, you've

invited me to Apple before. The stories are legendary about new products with black drapery over them, the locked doors to secrecy, and any American company can keep a secret. It's Apple to those who might say, Why didn't the FBI and Apple team up far earlier in one of those secret labs and get this done, and no one would have ever had to know about it? Well, I can't talk about the tactics of the FBI. They've chosen what they've done, and they've chosen to do this out in the public for whatever reasons that they have. What we think at this given is out in public is that we need to stand tall and stand tall on principle. Our job is to protect our customers, and our customers have incredibly detailed information on their phones. There's probably more information about you on your phone than there is in your house. Our smartphones are loaded with our intimate conversations, our financial data, our health records. They're also loaded with the location of our kids in many cases, and so it's not

just about privacy, but it's also about public safety. No one would want this kind of information to be available. No one, no one. I don't believe would want a master key built that would turn hundreds of millions of locks, even if that key were in the possession of the person that you trust the most. That key can be stolen. That is what this is about. So, there's no question you are concerned about a slippery slope, about a precedent that would be set if you did this. David, it's clear that it would be a precedent. The New York law enforcement is already talking about having a hundred and seventy-five phones. There are other counties across the United States talking about phones they have, and so it is a slippery slope. I don't fear it. It is one. If you didn't think this would set a precedent, if you didn't believe this would be a slippery slope, is this something your engineers could do, and how quickly could they do it? We've never done it before, so I don't know how long.

It would take, would I do it in a perfect world where none of the implications that I'm talking about exist. Yes, we would do it. We would obviously do it. But we don't live in a perfect world. If you look at hacking, many Americans, hundreds of millions of Americans last year had their credit card stolen. I mean, this is a travesty, but it's just not that. It's also the location of their family members. There's so much information on a phone that goes beyond economics and privacy. It is also public safety. And so, I know people like to frame this argument as privacy versus national security. That is overly simplistic, and it is not true. This is also about public safety. The smartphone that you carry has more information about you on it than probably any other singular device or any other singular place. So, this is about protecting the safety of the people who carry those iPhones. That's exactly right. And by the way, if and it's probably just not iPhone because if the government

could order Apple to create such a piece of software. It could be ordered for anyone else as well. Let me doesn't stop here. Did you have conversations with the FBI early on about helping them find ways to get at that information without having to break into the phone? We gave significant advice to them. As a matter of fact, one of the things that we suggested was take the phone to a network that it would be familiar with, which is generally the home. Plug it in, power it on, leave it overnight, and so that it would backup, and so that you'd have a current backup. The phone backs up to the iCloud, back to the iCloud, which makes a, you can think of it as making a picture of almost everything on the phone, not everything, but almost everything. Did they do that? Unfortunately, in the days, the early days of the investigation, an FBI directed the county to reset the iCloud password. When that is done, the phone will no longer backup to the cloud. And so I wish they would have contacted us earlier, so

that that would not have been the case. How crucial was that missed opportunity? You know, it's assuming the cloud backup was still on, and there's no reason to believe that it wasn't. Then, it is very crucial. The FBI has acknowledged that they changed the Apple ID on the phone and therefore missed the opportunity to sync up with the iCloud. But it's their contention that there is still information, data on the phone. The iPhone that they have in their hands, is that possible? There would be information on the phone, sure. There's some information on the phone. I don't know what it is. The kinds of things that you would be able to find out from other places are what calls were made, where were they made to, were messages sent across the cellular network. All of this kind of information is available without going into the phone. Could there be additional information on the phone? Maybe, maybe yes, maybe no, I don't know. And even the FBI has acknowledged they're not sure. Yes, I think in that kid, that area.

There is no dispute to some people at home listening to this argument who understand where you're coming from, who might say this was a terrorist attack on US soil, and that if ever there was a case that Apple would make some sort of exception, that this might be that moment. Do you really want to plant the flag on privacy and safety on Syed Farook's psiphon? I think safety of the public is incredibly important. Safety of our kids, safety of our families is very important. The protection of people's data is incredibly important. And so the trade-off here is we know that doing this could expose people to incredible vulnerabilities. This is not something that we would create. This would be bad for America. It would also set a precedent that I believe many people in America would be offended by. And so when you think about those which are knowns compared to something that might be there, I believe we are making the right choice. But in your quiet moments, do you have any concern that you might be able

to prevent a terrorist attack by breaking into that phone. David, some things are hard, and some things are right, and some things are both. This is one of those things, and in this case, you believe there are some things that just should never be created, correct? I mean, think about this. It is, in our view, the software equivalent of cancer. Is this something that should be created? Technology can do so many things, but there are many things technology should never be allowed to do, and the way you not allow it is to not create it. The White House said this week that the FBI's request is, quote, limited in scope. Limited in scope. Do you agree with that, and have you talked to the President on this? I have not talked to the president. I will talk to the president. Do I think it's limited? No. I think this is not about this phone. This is about the future, and so I do see it as a precedent that should not be done in this country or any country. Just this, this is about civil liberties, and it's about people's ability to protect

themselves. If we take encryption away from the good people, the only people, or we take a Shin away, the only people that will be affected are the good people, not the bad people. Encryption. Apple doesn't own encryption. Encryption is readily available in every country in the world. As a matter of fact, the US government sponsors and funds encryption in many cases. And so, if we limit it in some way, the people that will hurt are the good people, not the bad people. They will find it anyway. You mentioned that you would be talking with the president. What will you tell him? I'm going to try to make the arguments that I've made to you and ask for his help in getting this on a better path because I strongly believe that the best of America comes out when we do all come together. But when you see gridlock in Washington, are you convinced that this is a kind of issue they can tackle right now? I hope so. Optimistically, I think so because people care deeply about civil liberties in Washington. They care deeply about safety. They care deeply about

national security. So, all of these issues are things that all of us care about. And so, yeah, I do believe that you have talked to the president before on these issues, yeah, privacy and security. Are you disappointed there wasn't more of a dialogue with the administration before this swift action from the Justice Department? Yes. You wish there was more done? Yes. And I think there should have been. With this filing, we found out about the filing from the press, and I don't think that's the way the railroad should be run. And I don't think that something so important to this country should be handled in this way. Let me ask you, you brought up encryption, and I think that's a really important point for the people at home to understand the evolution of encryption. With the iPhone, you had a previous operating system with the iPhone where law enforcement authorities have pointed out they could extract the data from the phone. They can no longer do that, and that was a conscious decision by Apple, was it not? It was. If you look at the

Last few years, hacking has become increasingly commonplace. It is very difficult to secure data, and the everyday person can't do it. They look for Apple to help them do it. I mean, you can you need to look no further than the government, which has had some of the worst breaches of all in this case. And so, yes, security gets better with every software release that we have. Encryption gets more advanced. It has to, to stay one step ahead of the bad guy. So, it's not a mistake that we can't get into Syed Farook's phone. It's we're not we didn't do it for that reason, David. We did it to protect our customers. But yes, a side effect is it means that Apple can't get into it either. Because think of it like this, if you put a door in a house, it's a lot easier to get in that house. It doesn't matter whether it's locked or not. You can get somebody can get in that. And so, our simple view is you encrypt end-to-end, and you don't keep a key, and

so the people that can see communications are the people on either end of that communication. But let's stick with that metaphor and to the people who say we want just a door to this house. Syed Farook psiphon. Is that possible? No, there's no such thing as a backdoor for the good guys. The bad guys will find it - meaning your concern is for the millions of customers who walk around with their own data, their family's data on their phones. Yes, I am. And in keep in mind, this data includes the location of their kids, the location of their families. This isn't just about privacy, although it's very important. It's also about public safety. You're aware of the people watching this who understand your argument but who say in this case this was a terrorist's iPhone. What would you say, David? We have no sympathy for terrorists. That in my view, they left their rights back when they decided to do awful things way in the planning stage. But this isn't about we're not protecting their privacy. We're

protecting the privacy of everyone else. We're protecting the public safety of everyone else. That is what this is about. If they left their rights at the door, why not break into their phone then? Because doing that exposes everyone else. That is the reason developing that piece of software develops a piece of software that is so powerful that has the ability to unlock the capability to unlock other iPhones. That is the issue because your argument is that a master key can't then be thrown out. It's not like a physical key. A physical key, you could shred the software key, and of course, with other parts of the government asking for more and more cases, in more and more cases, that software would stay living and it would be turning the crank. You can imagine the target that would be on that piece. I'm not saying the government would abuse it. I don't agree that going case-by-case is the right approach, but there's a lot of bad guys in the world, and you don't need to look further than what has happened to our

own government. Millions of people have had their personal information stolen by hackers. As you know, this has become an issue in the race for president. Donald Trump is calling for a boycott of Apple until, quote, Tim Cook unlocks that phone. Trump adding that the phone is owned by the government, by San Bernardino County. Does he have a point here? You know, David, in a few weeks Apple will turn 40. Apple could have only been started in America. We've created 1.9 million jobs now in the United States, and we have tens of millions of customers who use our products. We work for them, and we love deeply our country. But what's at stake here is should we be compelled to write software that we believe would make vulnerable hundreds of millions of people and trample on civil liberties? That is what is at stake, and the heartwarming emails I'm getting from military, from policemen, from all across America tells me there's a fair number of people that believe as we do, and even the people that don't believe that in

our democracy. This should be out in the open and discussed, not under some kind of, you know, done in the back room somewhere. But you hear that from the Republican frontrunner, from Donald Trump. Boycott Apple until Tim Cook unlocks the phone. A lot of presidential candidates have been asked, how will they talk with the tech community about protecting this country? Is that the right route in saying boycott Apple the best thing? David is America is strongest when we all come together, and so there are great people in the FBI and the DOJ and in government, incredible public service. There's also some really smart people in technology, and there's some really great people focused on civil liberties. All of these groups need to come together. We've recommended a commission. I would be okay with it being called something else or done in a different way, but the key is for all of the key people to come together and really think through these issues, but not just look at one, look at all of them, and recognize that at the

core of this are some of the founding principles of our country, which we should be taking a huge pause to trample on. So, is a boycott a way to come together? You know, I think a democracy is messy sometimes, but this, this is I love democracy. That is who we are. I think the best thing to do is to discuss and collaborate and work together on whatever the solution may be. Help people at home understand what you mean when you say the FBI wants you to create a separate system that would get you into that phone right now. They have an iPhone, the passcode on the front like we all use to get into our iPhones, and after a certain number of tries, it just auto-erases the phone. What they want is they want us to develop a new operating system that takes out the security precautions, including the precaution that after 10 tries, if somebody has set erase all data after 10, they want that to not be in there. And then they want an ability to go through a

number of passwords at the speed of a modern computer. A computer would do that, a computer would do that, and so that is what they're asking for. We believe that is a very dangerous operating system because once people know that that exists, you say it's out of the bag. Yeah, think about this for a minute. If you knew, or not you, but if one of the bad guys knew that that existed, think about the target that is. Everybody would want that operating system because you could get in. It has the potential to get into any iPhone. This is not something that should be created, which takes me back to that question about middle ground. Was there an opportunity missed where Apple could have quietly met with the FBI behind closed doors in one of your many labs here, Apple being the best at keeping secrets around, to have come up with a solution long before this moment? We, David, we continue to look for things in this case. We're not giving up. What we're objecting to is building something that's bad for people.

is there an opportunity? I think it's I think the best things will happen when people work together. The best way to know what was on this phone would have been to have the cloud backup. That is the best way, and unfortunately, an error was. And that is it possible. Have you been surprised by how swift the action has been from the Justice Department, given your previous dialogue with this administration? Yes, I was surprised that we weren't contacted, and I bet I wasn't contacted personally and told they were doing this. Would it have changed the outcome? I don't know. I don't know, but I think if you and I are working together for a long time, and I've decided to file a lawsuit on you, I feel like I owe it to you to tell you in advance, you personally, and that didn't happen here, and I'm disappointed with it. However, it doesn't affect our willingness and desire to cooperate fully, to discuss the future, but we shouldn't be. But I do want them.

to withdraw this case because this case is bad for America. And how will you answer the order this week? We will answer and say why we object, and we will await the court's decision. There is reporting that writing computer code, the code that it would take to create this system to get into that phone, should be protected under the First Amendment. Is that part of the case? That's up to the lawyers. Honestly, it's not at the primary. It's not my primary focus. My primary focus is, as I've said before, is on the customers that would then be vulnerable and the trampling on civil liberties. That is my focus. I'm curious, Tim, did you ever think that you'd find yourself at the center of such a crucial national debate? No, this is not a position that we would like to be in. It is a very uncomfortable position to oppose your government on something. It doesn't feel good. And to oppose it on something where we are advocating for civil liberties, which they are supposed to protect, it is incredibly ironic.

but this is where we find ourselves, and for also for all of those people who want to have a voice but they're afraid. We are standing up, and we are standing up for our customers because protecting them we view as our job. And I hope, and I think, I'm very optimistic. I think we will come together, and I don't know what will happen, but I think we will come together, and there will be one path forward. The U.S. always comes out of these things well, but I feel very good that the debate is going on. Even when people disagree with us, it is good that the debate is happening. That's what makes this country so special. And for you personally, has it been the biggest challenge in being CEO level that you faced? I faced a lot of challenges, but I've never felt sort of the government apparatus before. And so yes, I would say this is right up there, but it's not my sole focus by any means. We're focused on making great

problems, and I heard you say there is great hope still that you can come together on this. You don't know how it will happen, but you hope it will happen. But are you prepared to take this all the way to the Supreme Court? We would be prepared to take this issue all the way, yes, because I think it's that important for America. This should not be decided court by court by court. If you decide that it's okay to force a company to do something that they think is bad for hundreds of millions of people, then you think about this for a minute. In this case, it's an awful case. There is no worse case than this case. But there may be a judge in a different district that feels that this case should apply to a divorce case. There may be one in the next state over that thinks it should apply in a tax case. Another state over, it might should apply in a robbery. So you begin to say, wait a minute, this isn't how this should happen. If there is going to be a law, then it should be done

out in the open for people, so their voices are heard through their representatives in Congress. And if Congress decided that there's this small category, this was a terrorist's iPhone. If Congress decided that, if the American people signed off on that, you'd entertain it. Let me be clear, at the end of the day, we have to follow the law, just like everybody else. We have to follow the law. What is going on right now is we're getting, we're having our voices be heard. And I would encourage everyone that has a voice on here, that wants to have a voice, and wants to have an opinion, to make sure their voice is heard. That's why we're here today. Thanks, David. Tim Connolly, appreciate. Thank you for your candor. Thank you.

Exclusive: Apple CEO Tim Cook Sits Down With David Muir (Extended Interview) | ABC News

Exclusive: Apple CEO Tim Cook Sits Down With David Muir (Extended Interview) | ABC News