[Ken H]

So in your opinion, would it be in keeping with the Constitution if a federal judge ordered a safe company to build a device that would crack its safes?

[mrsmith]

Yes. If needed it would clearly be ‘in furtherence’ of the court’s search warrant.

However giving that device to the police to possess would go beyond the needs of the court.

Apple will apparently claim that the first cannot be done without the second, I don’t believe that is true.

[at bay]

Not a bad analogy. Imagine if the ceo of verizon, when faced with a secret warrant from the fisa court, for all our phone records had said no. What would they do? A secret arrest and a secret trial...followed by incareation in a secret prison?