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I wish Apple would be able to recoup their legal costs from the DoJ -- the government shouldn't be allowed to force a company to spend money on defending their
by Johnny555 11y ago
I wish Apple would be able to recoup their legal costs from the DoJ -- the government shouldn't be allowed to force a company to spend money on defending their rights (using our "unlimited" tax dollars to do so), only to drop the case at the last minute making the entire case moot.
Apple should be able to recover their legal costs.
- GraemeLion 11y agoSomewhat agree, but Apple DID have a court order they were fighting. They did choose to fight this legally adjudicated and issued order. The owner of the phone and the law enforcement both wanted the phone decrypted. FWIW, I agree that privacy is ignored and should be respected, but apple chose this fight. I'm glad they did, but they knew it would cost them.
- Johnny555 11y agoAnd the DoJ stopped fighting. If the DoJ ultimately won the case, then it's fair that Apple should have to pay their legal costs. But since using a 200 year old law to force Apple to do work they don't want to do was a legal stretch, if the DoJ lost the case then again I'd say the DoJ should pay Apple's legal costs.
- teacup50 11y agoThe law in question was passed the same week that congress submitted the fourth amendment. Please stop parroting "200 year old law".
- Johnny555 11y agoOh, you mean in 1789, 227 years ago?
- teacup50 11y agoYes. The same week that the fourth amendment -- which is what provides us with strong protection against unreasonable search and seizure -- was approved by Congress. Or do you refer to that as a stale 200 year old law, too?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- gherkin0 11y ago> They did choose to fight this legally adjudicated and issued order. IIRC, but wasn't the order issued with only one side present at court (i.e. without Apple's attorneys being present to raise issues before it was issued)?
- eric_h 11y agoWhile I agree, the counterargument will likely be that all of Apple's lawyers are on salary and as such Apple's legal costs would be no different with or without the court proceedings.
- Johnny555 11y agoThat's kind of like saying that all of Apple's engineers are on salary, so even it it takes a team of 100 engineers 6 months to write the software the DoJ asked for, there's really no cost to Apple. Businesses don't often pay employees to do nothing, that legal team would be doing other corporate legal work if they weren't working on this case, and I'm sure they paid outside consultants to help with the case.
- eric_h 11y agoThat is a fair point. I will reiterate that I agreed with the original poster and was positing what the counterargument presented from the courts/3 letter agencies would be. We'll never see that counterargument regarding the cost of engineering FBiOS, since the case was withdrawn. [Edit: we'll never see it because I believe that the FBI will not likely go after Apple again, specifically because they put up a much more forceful fight against it than the FBI ever thought they would. Admittedly I'm speculating, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable]
- discordance 11y agoI don't think this is a question particularly about Apple, but more so around the system. If it were another entity without the same financial backing how would they be able to handle it?
- niccaluim 11y agoNo company on earth uses corporate counsel for this sort of thing. Apple hired two outside firms.
- eric_h 11y agoI know nothing about corporate law, thanks for the info.