news | Apple store rallies reveal wider rights issue

A reporter interviews an activist outside the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. Credit: Author

NEW YORK—A small knot of about 20 people stood outside the flagship Apple Store on Fifth Avenue early Tuesday evening to show solidarity with Apple as it continues to fight a government request to unlock an iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, the shooter in the San Bernardino attacks. Although the debate centers around Apple’s refusal to bypass or disable security features in the shooter’s smartphone, activists at the rally revealed a deeper, ideological debate about privacy, security, and government overreach in the digital age.

“This is a precedent to break through digital rights,” said a man at the rally who wished to be identified only as R. “You have a right to privacy. This is your digital life.”

The New York rally was part of a string of rallies in over 40 different cities worldwide organized by Fight for the Future, a nonprofit, technology-oriented advocacy group, and was a follow-up to an earlier protest last week at an Apple Store in San Francisco.

Although the headline event was held at Apple’s flagship New York City branch, some activists believed the government’s request touched on a privacy dispute that went beyond the technology giant’s public dispute with the FBI.

“This is not an iPhone issue,” said an activist named Arline at the rally. “This is an issue for everybody and everybody’s cellphones and everybody’s devices and everybody’s computers. It’s not like Apple unlocks it and everybody’s safe. The minute we take a step down this slippery slope, that’s it--we can kiss all our rights goodbye. And if we don’t stand up and stop even the first baby step from happening then we all deserve what we get.”

Other activists saw the government’s actions as an uncomfortable overstep of basic principles and rights.

“I don’t even have [an Apple device],” said Sadie Kleinman, another activist at the event. “I just think that it’s really important that everybody respect people’s right to privacy, which is essential to democracy and is guaranteed in the constitution.”

“It is a rights issue for me,” says Ms. Kleinman. “A democracy can’t function if people don’t feel secure in their privacy and their rights to express their opinions.”