From your linked article:
"One of the tragic gaps in Cook's letter is that he ignores the strength of the government's Fourth Amendment case. He also fails to explain why granting the government's request necessarily involves the compromise of the privacy of millions when only one iPhone is at stake."
Richard Epstein's premise in his "Apple's iPhone Blunder" article, besides ignoring most of Apple's argument to focus on only a single point, the question of whether there was any right to privacy inherent in that particular iPhone, which really is NOT relevant since dead people have no right to privacy, and the fact that the County, the true owner of the iPhone, gave its permission to open it, again irrelevant, but rather his point that the Court Order only applied to that SINGLE PHONE and that Apple had no case to that it would apply any further than that to the millions of other iPhones in the wild.
Tragic Gap? Cook was completely right. Epstein is repeating YOUR canard that, "It's not that important or serious, it only applies to just this case and just this one iPhone. Apple can keep the software or even destroy it after opening this phone. What's to worry about?"
That has no been shot down in Spades, as counting this case, there are now THIRTEEN such "Any Writs Act" cases the Department of Justice has opened with exactly the SAME demand on Apple! Create software to unlock these iPhones and iPads because we want to see what's in them. Epstein is wrong. Dead wrong. This IS a precedent setting case.
Epstein is short sighted and clueless. He continues on to argue that the "All Writs Act" has been used multiple times before and has been used to compel "labor" as if compelling CREATIVITY is the same thing as doing a search through documents, or drilling out a cylinder of a lock, or digging up a field with a backhoe. This order is treading new ground, ordering a company to create something that will actually MATERIALLY DAMAGE its main product for now and the foreseeable future, and in addition put almost a billion other devices protected by what the court orders be compromised at risk. That is NOT something that is, as Epstein so blithely dismisses, done thousands of times every week. It is, literally, unique in jurisprudence. Ordering a construction company to break down a wall to find a hidden room or an electrician to trace a hidden circuit to find stolen electricity is a far cry from requiring a company to invent something to order that will actually harm itself and its primary products, and its customers around the world. That has NOT been ever required by any "All Writs Act" order before in history. Judges simply do not have the power to order anyone to damage themselves, much less destroy themselves to comply with a court order.
Compromising the primary security of the Apple iOS ecosystem IS of that potential destructive level in this field. It is that important to people because their passwords, their credit and debit cards, their banking records, and many other extremely personal data is secured by Apple's promise to not allow anything into their devices.
Apple Versus the FBI
It's possible that the FBI is not primarily concerned with the particular evidence stored on the San Bernardino shooter's phone at all.
Andrea Castillo --February 23, 2016 -- Reason MagazineThe technology industry is in an uproar over the revelation of a series of court orders directing Apple to compromise iPhone security to assist in the FBI investigation of deceased San Bernardino shooters Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik. In a public letter to Apple customers published last Wednesday, CEO Tim Cook strongly condemned the order to build a so-called "back door" for government access into encrypted technology. The FBI, on the other hand, counters that this request is a reasonable and narrow means to bring about justice for the victims of terrorism. Stripping away the emotional rhetoric from all sides, the core question is whether a company can be compelled to build a tool for law enforcement that will compromise the security of any of its devices.
In the short term, such a precedent could create significant ethical dilemmas for technology firms’ customer and business relationships while opening the door to similar demands from foreign governments. In the long term, the FBI’s efforts may ultimately—and ironically—undermine the agency's broader goal of accessing critical evidence by encouraging tech companies to build products that are impervious to infiltration by design. This incident is only the latest conflict in a years-long encryption and security war waging between privacy- and security-minded groups and the law enforcement community. As more communications are digitized, authorities have been calling for industry assistance to build so-called government "backdoors" into secure technologies by hook or by crook.
Those in law enforcement fear a scenario where critical evidence in a terrorism or criminal case is beyond the reach of law enforcement because it is protected by strong encryption techniques that conceal data from anyone but the intended recipient. Hence, leaders at agencies like the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Security Agency, along with President Obama, have weighed in against strong encryption. . .
read more at the link
Which is what a rational person ought to do.
Ignoring most of your argument is also what a rational person would do.
That has no been shot down in Spades, as counting this case, there are now THIRTEEN such "Any Writs Act" cases the Department of Justice has opened with exactly the SAME demand on Apple! Create software to unlock these iPhones and iPads because we want to see what's in them. Epstein is wrong. Dead wrong. This IS a precedent setting case.
You're slow or something. The court order is about this one phone. Yes, it sets a precedent that Apple will always be required to open up any other phone within their capability after receiving a court order.
This is how this legal issue should be resolved.
Every time Apple is given a court order to open a phone, so long as it is within their capability, Apple should be required to do it. Yes, it sets a precedent, and it should set a precedent, and thereafter Apple needs to shut up, stop stirring up the public, and just comply with the law.