> Why would Apple do that? Because it gets required to by the laws of countries responsible for most of their market? And because authoritarian regimes intent

> Why would Apple do that? Because it gets required to by the laws of countries responsible for most of their market? And because authoritarian regimes intentionally blur the lines between criminal and political surveillance over time, making it harder for companies to draw hard policy lines? Concern about this doesn't require any bond villains, it just requires well-intentioned pragmatists on one side and idealogical politicos on the other. FWIW, I think you have a point about the doom-saying. Countries with good judicial protections around privacy already use it as a backstop against dirty tricks where folks use one type of surveillance to require another. But it makes sense to wonder how those barriers will erode over time, and to worry about places where they don't exist.