Comment by jessegreathouse

If the government wins any of these court battles, it's only a matter of time until one-way encryption is outlawed. It follows logically that if criminals/terrorists can't use iPhones to securely communicate, then they'll just move on to the next convenient encryption app. The government will continue to order companies to break their one-way encryption until the government realizes they're playing musical chairs and then they'll issue an executive order to ban one-way encryption outright. The precedent allowing them to do so, will be all of these initial court battles vs Apple, whatsapp, and whoever else gets defeated. In the wake of these events regular people, like you and me, will be harmed by hackers and commercial companies exploiting this new world without one-way encryption.