Apple’s Privacy Fight Tests Relationship With White House
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and KATIE BENNER

WASHINGTON — Timothy D. Cook, the chief executive of Apple, was relentless during a private meeting of tech giants and President Obama’s top national security officials last month. Encrypted devices like the iPhone are here to stay, he insisted. Law enforcement needs to find a way to do its job in a new world.

James B. Comey Jr., the director of the F.B.I., and Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch pushed back, but Mr. Cook stood firm, several participants said.

“With all due respect,” Mr. Cook told those around the table, including Mr. Obama’s counterterrorism chief and the heads of the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, “I think there has been a lack of leadership in the White House on this.”

Denis R. McDonough, the president’s chief of staff, took exception and said so. Law enforcement officials described him as stung by what they called Mr. Cook’s “rant,” although tech executives in the room insisted that Apple’s chief executive was respectful.

Either way, what started as a cordial two-hour discussion about combating Islamic extremism ended with the White House and Mr. Cook agreeing to disagree — foreshadowing a bitter battle between a president long enamored of Apple products and Silicon Valley and a tech titan who has spoken enthusiastically of Mr. Obama.

Although the president and Mr. Cook are not personal friends, associates say they have developed a relationship of professional admiration and mutual self-interest. At the least, the two share similar traits: discipline, a cerebral nature and impatience with office drama. Now they find themselves in roles no one ever imagined, as the central antagonists in the raging debate between personal privacy and the nation’s security.

By refusing demands from Mr. Obama’s Justice Department to help unlock a phone used by one of the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorists, Mr. Cook has become the leading voice in Silicon Valley for encryption. By voicing strong support for his F.B.I., Mr. Obama is now the effective chief prosecutor of the administration’s case for allowing law enforcement to penetrate iPhones.

If Apple had more of a presence in Washington, as do Google, Facebook and Microsoft, technology executives say there is a chance the dispute might have been quietly resolved. But few top Apple veterans have moved through the revolving door that has brought engineers and executives from other technology companies to the Obama White House to serve in a variety of security, technology and scientific positions. Apple’s lobbying budget in Washington is far smaller than its competitors’.

“I have not talked to the president. I will talk to the president,” Mr. Cook said in an interview with ABC News last week, a day before his company filed legal papers opposing the government. Mr. Cook said he planned to ask Mr. Obama “for his help in getting this on a better path.”

An Apple spokesman said he had no idea when such a call might happen, and White House officials offered no indication that Mr. Obama and Mr. Cook were scheduled to talk anytime soon.

It is unclear when Mr. Obama and Mr. Cook first met, but in the four years since Mr. Cook succeeded Steven P. Jobs as Apple’s chief executive, he has visited the White House at least a half-dozen times.

In the summer of 2013, soon after Edward J. Snowden revealed some of the government’s most secret surveillance programs, Mr. Cook joined 16 other technology executives and privacy advocates for a grievance session with Mr. Obama in the Roosevelt Room. Two participants said Mr. Cook told the president that the Snowden revelations had led people to believe that Apple was helping the government spy on Americans.

The exchange was an early indication of the tensions with the White House that would eventually develop.

“He was concerned about the misperception in the public about the extent to which Apple was cooperating,” recalled Larry Lessig, a Harvard law professor and privacy activist, who was also at the meeting.

Four months later, Mr. Cook attended another meeting with Mr. Obama in the Roosevelt Room on a similar topic. The following year, in December 2014, White House visitor logs show that Mr. Cook spent two days in the West Wing, where he met with Mr. Obama in the Oval Office and shared a meal in the White House mess with John D. Podesta, who was then counselor to Mr. Obama as well as the president’s environmental czar.

In September 2015, Mr. Cook was again at the White House, where he had a prime seat at the state dinner for President Xi Jinping of China.

Current and former White House officials say Mr. Obama appreciated the attention that Mr. Cook brought to issues like immigration, gay marriage and climate change. When Mr. Obama solicited Apple and other companies to support his ConnectED program for technology in schools, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Cook’s decision to pledge $100 million worth of iPads and MacBooks, calling it “an enormous commitment.”

There were also tensions. White House officials were not happy about Apple’s decision to shelter billions of dollars in offshore accounts and have repeatedly pressed Mr. Cook to explain the company’s need to build its blockbuster products in China rather than in the United States.

But the encryption debate, and the government’s legal action against Apple last week, are testing the relationship with the company more than any other.

“A company thinks very hard before it defies the government,” said Nicole Wong, who was Google’s lead lawyer when Google resisted a Justice Department request for user data. But if a disagreement happens, “it’s not bad for this policy conversation to happen transparently in a court proceeding.”

At the same time, there was a growing alliance between this White House and Silicon Valley. Although other presidents have looked to the valley’s innovators and venture capitalists for money, political support and ideas, this administration has wooed tech executives in far greater numbers. The president also has close ties to those in the industry who supported him early on, including Reed Hastings, the Netflix chief executive, and Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn.

Now, while Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are expected to file papers to the court in solidarity with Apple’s encryption position, Mr. Cook stands relatively alone in his fight. This was evident at the meeting in January in Silicon Valley.

As participants recalled it, Mr. Cook was the one who shifted the conversation to encryption — prompting nods of agreement from executives at Dropbox, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yahoo and others.

Soon after, Mr. McDonough brought the meeting to an end. “Put a pin in it,” participants recalled that he said, making it clear that the conversation would continue.

But one month later, the Justice Department moved against Apple.

iPhone拒開後門 庫克訪白宮嗆「領導無方」

紐約時報報導，上個月美國科技業諸巨頭與總統歐巴馬的最高國家安全官員私下會面，蘋果執行長庫克毫不退讓，堅持iPhone這些加密的裝置仍會存在並維持原狀。庫克在捍衛果粉隱私權之際，蘋果與白宮的關係也受到考驗。

兩小時的會面旨在討論對抗伊斯蘭恐怖主義之道，起初一團和氣，最後卻毫無共識，預示身為果粉的歐巴馬與歐巴馬的粉絲庫克間，未來將有一場苦戰。

上述會面在座者包括聯邦調查局長、司法部長、歐巴馬的反恐總管、國家安全局長與國土安全部長。庫克態度堅決，他告訴大家：「請容我說，我認為白宮在這件事上領導無方。」有些在場的執法官員事後形容庫克當時在「咆哮」，與會的科技業高管們則認為庫克發言態度並無不敬。

歐巴馬與庫克雖無私交，卻在彼此欣賞且互利的情況存在某種關係，不料現今卻在個人隱私與國家安全的辯論中處於敵對狀態。

紐約時報說，蘋果堅拒配合加州法院命令提供特製軟體，協助聯調局將加州聖伯納地諾恐攻案主嫌法魯克的iPhone解鎖，庫克也從而成為矽谷捍衛加密作法的領導人。歐巴馬則在表態力挺聯調局後，儼然成了力主協助執法單位滲透iPhone的首席檢察官。

一些科技業主管說，若蘋果也和臉書、谷歌、微軟一樣，在華府有許多人馬，這項爭論可能早已悄悄解決。蘋果很少有高管或工程師轉往白宮擔任安全、技術或科學職位。

上周庫克受訪時說：「我還沒和總統談過。我會跟他談。」庫克表示他將要求歐巴馬協助解決此事。蘋果和白宮的發言人均表示不知兩人會在何時談話。

庫克出任蘋果執行長4年，造訪白宮至少6次。2013年夏，庫克和16名科技業高管及隱私權提倡者在白宮與歐巴馬會面。當時庫克告訴歐巴馬，中情局前雇員史諾登洩密案，使民眾認為蘋果一直在協助政府監控美國人。

這項對話是蘋果與白宮緊張關係的早期徵兆，也顯示雙方在隱私權之戰的可能發展。手機加密的辯論，以及上周政府對蘋果的司法行動，正讓蘋果與白宮的關係面臨歷來最大考驗。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/technology/apples-privacy-fight-tests-relationship-with-white-house.html

2016-02-28．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯王麗娟