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| Gatehouse, Swain's Lock, C&O Canal, Potomac, MD (Bergeron Image) |
(Author’s Note: In my prior post of Sunday, March 13, 2016, I
discussed the problems facing U.S. security agencies as they attempt to obtain
release of encrypted information stored on the iPhones of actual and potential
terrorists. The post below is the second
half of that topic.)
American high-tech firms with international operations continue
to expand production in mainland China.
Luring them is the siren song of higher profit margins made available by
an apparently endless supply of low-cost labor, as well as the prospect of
expanded revenues for products and services sold within the Chinese internal market.
One American firm with such ambitions is Apple. That company, according to my assessment of Herman’s
article referred to in my previous post, has responded to demands by Chinese government
officials concerning customer information much differently than it has to the recent
request made by the FBI to unlock the iPhone of the San Bernardino terrorist
shooter.
Herman writes that “Apple
is the first foreign company that has agreed to let China carry out security
checks on its devices in obedience to the counterterrorism and national
security law passed [in China] in
November, 2014.”
He adds that “Apple obligingly
stores its information on Chinese users on servers in China; it has also agreed
to inspections by Internet police of the data stored there.”
His revelations get to the very core (no pun intended!) of
why Apple may be so intransigently hypocritical about its refusal to share
information with the FBI while simultaneously caving in to Chinese government demands
for customer surveillance.
The authoritarian regime of China will brook no attempts by
its citizens to free expression over the World Wide Web. Instead it professes the appearance of doing
so while controlling access and restricting Internet usage, thereby constricting
the flow of information for its own citizens.
In his essay about Internet Security, Herman pinpoints the
reason for Apple’s policy inconsistency: “with 70 percent
of its manufacturing based in China, it’s not surprising that Apple executives
will do little or nothing to endanger the company’s relations with the
Communist Government.”
Apple’s Catch-22 is that
it is embroiled in a contradictory situation:
It refuses to provide American security agencies with access to data
about potential terrorist activities, while simultaneously assisting the
authoritarian regime of China to limit and surveil the Internet activities of
its own citizens.
In Commentary,
Herman opines about Apple’s privacy practices in China:
“There are still
questions, however, about Apple’s willingness to facilitate Chinese
surveillance of [its] citizens.”
·
Will Apple
executives agree to install ‘back doors’ in products enabling the Chinese
government to enhance its snooping?
·
Will the
company hand over to the Communist government source codes for the encryption
of iPhones (something it refused to do in the case of the American federal
government)?”
Sound familiar?
As Apple continues to resist the legitimate requests of U.S.
Government agencies charged with protecting Americans from terrorists’ threats
from within and without, keep this in in mind:
Effectively, there is an enormous policy chasm as to how
Apple responds to data requests of U.S. security agencies fighting terrorism,
and of how it responds to the demands of the Chinese government as the latter
willfully controls the flow of information over the World Wide Web for its own people
within and beyond Chinese borders.
Thanks for reading, and take care of yourselves out there.
“Few men are so clever
as to know all the mischief they do.” (Rochefoucauld)
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