蘋果與FBI之爭並未畫上句號 Apple is standing up for its rights, not thwarting the FBI
People have long worried about technology invading their lives. The front cover of Newsweek magazine, illustrated by a telephone, camera and tape recorder, once captured those fears, asking: “Is Privacy Dead?” The date: July 1970.
人們一直擔心技術入侵自己的生活。《新聞週刊》(Newsweek)曾刻畫出這種害怕心理，它在封面上刊登電話、相機和錄音機的圖片，並質問道：“隱私完蛋了嗎？”當時是1970年7月。
Since then, we have seen the mass introduction of personal devices such as laptop computers, smartphones and health monitors. Today, more than 6bn such devices are connected to the internet. According to Gartner, a technology research company, 5.5m are being added each day. Most of them are vulnerable to being hacked by those ingenious or devious enough. We truly live in a golden age of surveillance, in which every step we take and every heart flutter we make can be recorded, for better or worse.
自那以來，我們看到筆記本電腦、智能手機和健康監測器等個人設備大量出現。現在，逾60億臺此類設備與互聯網相連。技術研究公司Gartner的數據顯示，聯網設備在以每天550萬部的速度增加。其中大部分設備很容易遭受那些足夠機靈或狡猾的黑客入侵。我們真的生活在一個監控的黃金時代，我們走的每一步以及我們的每一次心顫都可以被記錄下來，無論是好還是壞。
Our governments are desperate for us to keep that information secure — but, understandably, they also want selective access to that mass of data when national security demands. The technology companies, which often stand between governments and users, have mostly been happy to comply with lawful requests for such data.
我們的政府迫切希望我們保護這些信息的安全，但可以理解的是，它們也希望在國家安全需要時，可以有選擇地大量獲取數據。經常搖擺於政府和用戶之間的科技公司大多樂於配合有關調取此類數據的合法請求。
Apple’s latest transparency report, covering the first six months of 2015, records that the company received 3,824 requests for device information from US law enforcement authorities. It provided data in 81 per cent of those cases.
蘋果公司(Apple)在涵蓋2015年上半年的最新透明度報告中表示，期內該公司收到美國執法部門3824宗調取設備信息的請求。它在81%的案件中提供了數據。
The company operates a 24-hour hotline to respond to such requests and promptly helped the police investigate the San Bernardino attacks last year when two Islamist terrorists murdered 14 people. But when the FBI later demanded that Apple write special software to help crack a locked iPhone used by one of the killers, the company resisted, claiming this could jeopardise the security of all iPhone users. The FBI accused the company of obstructing its investigation. A heated row has ended up in court.
該公司有24小時熱線電話迴應此類請求，並在去年兩名伊斯蘭恐怖分子槍殺14人的聖貝納迪諾襲擊事件發生後迅速幫助警方展開調查。但是後來在美國聯邦調查局(FBI)要求蘋果編寫特殊軟件以幫助解鎖其中一位兇手的iPhone手機的時候，該公司予以了拒絕，並宣稱這可能危害所有iPhone用戶的安全。FBI指責蘋果公司妨礙調查。雙方爭執不下，最終鬧上了法庭。
This month, the FBI hit the pause button on those legal proceedings, saying it might have found another way of cracking the iPhone. Nevertheless, the case raises important issues of principle and precedent that resonate in all democratic countries trying to balance the demands of security against the rights of privacy. In spite of the odium heaped upon the company, Apple has done the right thing to stress-test these issues in court.
本月，FBI對相關法律訴訟按下了暫停按鈕，表示找到了別的解鎖iPhone的方法。然而，該案提出了重要的原則和判例問題，這些問題在所有試圖平衡安全需求和隱私權利的民主國家都引起了很大反響。儘管蘋果遭到許多人的反感，但該公司把這些問題拿到法庭上進行“壓力測試”是正確的。
As the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil rights organisation, has argued in a court submission: “If the government succeeds in this case, the relationship between technology providers and users will be forever altered.”
正如公民權利組織“民主科技中心”(Center for Democracy and Technology)在提交給法庭的證詞中辯稱的那樣：“如果美國政府打贏這場官司，那技術提供者和用戶之間的關係將會被永遠改變。”
This is not the first time US law enforcement agencies have tried to force Apple to override its security procedures, and on occasion the company has complied. Last year, however, at the invitation of a New York judge, Apple contested such an order in a case involving a drug dealer who subsequently pleaded guilty. In February, that judge ruled in the company’s favour.
這並非美國執法部門第一次試圖強迫蘋果越過其安全程序，蘋果有時也服從命令。然而去年在一起涉及一位毒販的案件中（毒販後來認罪了），蘋果在一位紐約法官的引導下，對一項類似命令提出了異議。今年2月，該法官做出了對蘋果有利的裁決。
Even though the New York and San Bernardino cases differ in important respects, the ruling by Judge James Orenstein is worth reading because of the arguments he highlighted.
儘管紐約毒販案和聖貝納迪諾槍擊案存在許多重大不同，但該案法官詹姆斯•奧倫斯坦(James Orenstein)在裁決書中提出的論點值得一讀。
The issue of principle concerns whether a company can be conscripted by the government into taking actions that it believes endanger its users’ rights and its commercial interests. It is one thing to hand over all accessible data upon receipt of a lawful request; it is quite another to be forced to create a backdoor into its own products.
所謂原則問題，就是政府是否可以強迫一家公司採取該公司認爲會危及用戶權利及自身商業利益的措施。在收到合法請求後移交所有可獲得的數據是一回事；被迫給自己的產品創建一道“後門”則是另一回事。
Judging there was a significant legal difference between active obstruction and passive refusal, Mr Orenstein ruled: “Apple is not ‘thwarting’ anything — it is merely declining to offer assistance.”
奧倫斯坦認爲主動妨礙和被動拒絕在法律上有着重大區別，因此他裁定：“蘋果沒有‘阻撓’任何事，它只是拒絕提供幫助。”
The issue of precedent revolves around whether it is appropriate for the government to use the All Writs Act of 1789 to force Apple to comply with its demands, as it has tried to do in both cases. Mr Orenstein concluded it was not, given that Congress had recently rejected legislation granting such powers.
判例問題則涉及政府援引1789年法案《All Writs Act》強迫蘋果服從其要求的做法是否恰當，這兩起案件中政府都試圖這麼做。奧倫斯坦的結論是，鑑於國會最近拒絕就賦予這種權力立法，政府這麼做並不恰當。
The judge called for further debate in Congress between legislators who understood the technological realities of a world that their predecessors could not begin to conceive. “It would betray our constitutional heritage and our people’s claim to democratic governance for a judge to pretend that our Fathers already had that debate, and ended it, in 1789,” he concluded.
這位法官呼籲，對前人無從想象的現實技術世界有所瞭解的議員們應該在國會展開進一步辯論。他總結道：“如果一名法官假裝國父們在1789年展開過、並且已經結束了這場辯論，那就有悖我們的憲法傳統以及人民關於民主治理的主張。”
Mr Orenstein’s ruling is far from the final judgment in the broader debate. The Department of Justice is appealing against his decision. This may all seem a messy process, but it can sometimes prove to be the useful means by which democracies grope towards greater legal clarity.
奧倫斯坦的裁決遠非更廣泛辯論的最終結論。美國司法部正針對他的裁決提出上訴。這看起來也許會是一個混亂的過程，但它有時可能被證明爲民主國家探索如何提高法律清晰度的有益途徑。
