> why did they back out now? We'll never know. Doesn't matter anyway. If Comey or Lynch is to be fired or forced to resign, then this situation will never be

> why did they back out now? We'll never know. Doesn't matter anyway. If Comey or Lynch is to be fired or forced to resign, then this situation will never be discussed. They'll never admit that they did not do their own due diligence. Lawyers argue their own side and that's it. Lynch and Comey are professionals at this. They only look dumb in this case because they don't know anything about technology. I firmly believe this is true. There's absolutely no value to the US government to seek to weaken Apple's product. Other free forms of encryption exist. If the lawyers really understood that they would never have bothered with the case. Even if the government got Apple's cooperation, there would be so much news about this that even more people would learn how to use encrypted messaging tools. It wouldn't help us defeat terrorists in the slightest and it'd cripple a major US company's primary product. The problem is there are only a few people in the White House and Congress with strong enough voices who understand technology. You have to be a maker of technology to understand this stuff. If you haven't tried to do that and have only ever been a user, there's a good chance you'll never understand it. I remember thinking if I set up WordPress or Drupal for my clients and taught them a little then they will learn to manage their own websites. Nope. In many cases, the older crowd still wanted me to make minor edits that could be done through the web interface. I'm sure you all have experienced the same. So, I think all the time and money was wasted on this because we still have people like Feinstein, who hates everything tech that she can't control, in office. We don't have enough Ted Lieu's. Amazing that CA produced these two opposing characters. Also, the CTO's primary concern is getting more women involved in computer science. She's made no comment on the encryption topic. Obama claims that he understands tech since he created a digital services team, but that's clearly false. Government needs an upgrade and we can only do that with our voices and votes.