3 ms·

OK? So the court can compel Apple to write the software-- not individual employees. I don't think anyone is considering holding individual employees in contem

OK? So the court can compel Apple to write the software-- not individual employees. I don't think anyone is considering holding individual employees in contempt. But yes Apple as a corporation can be punished financially if they refuse, if you hold that corporations don't have speech rights. Your point is not consistent.

ghaff 11y ago
Yes, but compelling Apple the corporation boils down to compelling individual employees. If the corporation is ordered to write some code, they have to find a way to do so unless they can prove that they are literally unable to (which isn't credible in this case). That would presumably ultimately mean telling some engineers that they have to do this or leave.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > That would presumably ultimately mean telling some engineers that they have to do this or leave. They just might. The problem is that there will always be people who will do it for a small amount of money or because of a misplaced sense of patriotism.
JoshTriplett 11y ago
That was not at all my point. I'm saying that you should be able to reason naturally from "individuals have rights" to "groups of individuals have rights", without encountering some massive disconnect when the group of individuals happens to have formed a company. If code is speech, and compelling the development and signing of code is compelled speech and thus prohibited, then it shouldn't matter whether the legal entity charged with the development and signing of that code is a company or an individual. It's wrong to compel an individual developer to develop and sign a backdoored version of a program they personally wrote and personally hold the signing keys for, and therefore it's wrong to compel a company to develop and sign a backdoored version of a program they collectively wrote and collectively hold the signing keys for.
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  To make an analogy with another part of the first amendment: It's like the government saying "Look, individually you Catholics are fine. Believe what you want. But as a group we're going to need your church to collectively renounce the Pope."

ghaff 11y ago

Yes, but compelling Apple the corporation boils down to compelling individual employees. If the corporation is ordered to write some code, they have to find a way to do so unless they can prove that they are literally unable to (which isn't credible in this case). That would presumably ultimately mean telling some engineers that they have to do this or leave.

jacquesm 11y ago
> That would presumably ultimately mean telling some engineers that they have to do this or leave. They just might. The problem is that there will always be people who will do it for a small amount of money or because of a misplaced sense of patriotism.

JoshTriplett 11y ago

That was not at all my point. I'm saying that you should be able to reason naturally from "individuals have rights" to "groups of individuals have rights", without encountering some massive disconnect when the group of individuals happens to have formed a company. If code is speech, and compelling the development and signing of code is compelled speech and thus prohibited, then it shouldn't matter whether the legal entity charged with the development and signing of that code is a company or an individual. It's wrong to compel an individual developer to develop and sign a backdoored version of a program they personally wrote and personally hold the signing keys for, and therefore it's wrong to compel a company to develop and sign a backdoored version of a program they collectively wrote and collectively hold the signing keys for.

wlesieutre 11y ago
To make an analogy with another part of the first amendment: It's like the government saying "Look, individually you Catholics are fine. Believe what you want. But as a group we're going to need your church to collectively renounce the Pope."