Mikey Campbell
In a one-on-one interview with ABC News' David Muir, Apple CEO Tim Cook called for the U.S. government to be more open about its surveillance efforts after revealing his company is under a gag order regarding such matters.
While Cook and Muir joked about Apple's legendary secrecy and possible plans for sapphire glass, the executive was deadly serious about the U.S. government's surveillance policies.
"From my point of view — number one — we need to be significantly more transparent," Cook said. "We need to say what data is being given, how many people it affects, how many people are affected. We need to be clear."
Cook noted that Apple is currently under a gag order and was not able say more on the subject. What the executive could say, however, is that there is no back door to Apple's servers or customer database.
Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden suggested Apple was complicit in the agency's PRISM data mining program, while other revelations pointed to secret system exploits aimed at the iPhone. Apple vehemently denied any involvement in the initiative.
"They would have to cart us out in a box for that," Cook said, referring to future government efforts to tap into Apple's backend. "This would not happen, we feel that strongly about it."
When asked whether he would press Congress for more transparency, Cook said, "Yes, absolutely...absolutely."
In December, Cook, alongside other tech moguls, met with President Barack Obama to discuss the NSA's surveillance efforts. The meeting was also supposed to serve as a roundtable on how to fix the HealthCare.gov system, but most of the time was reportedly spent on snooping.
Aside from the teaser excerpts aired earlier today, which covered topics from the made-in-America Mac Pro to sapphire glass, not much else was revealed during the brief two-minute segment.
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Andrew Orr
39 Comments
Unfortunately, people really don't want transparency. They want it to stop. It's like the three R's of environmentalism, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Businesses ONLY focus on Recycle, because they don't make money from Reduce and Reuse.
You realize we can’t know what we want stopped until we know what’s going on, right?
You realize we can’t know what we want stopped until we know what’s going on, right?
Puhlease. Cook is ONLY doing pressing for transparency because Apple wants to keep doing business with the ROW. Like the rest of the tech industry, this is only because Snowden dropped their pants in public.
If he believed it was a civil rights issue [that everyone's rights were being violated], that it is an actual problem, he would not be pushing for transparency. He would be pushing for STOPPING IT [well, hopefully, anyway], like he does for LGBT issues.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean nor how it’s a reply to what I said.
This is a compelling argument for the ROW to stop buying american products. Gag orders, secret courts, compromised cryptography .. Only when it puts a severe hurt on the profits will Americans wake up and put an end to it. By then it will in all probability be too late.
Once trust is lost, it is lost forever.