The world's most valuable company said this week that it will fight against a court order,

telling it to unblock the iPhone of one of the shooters in the San Bernardino massacre.

Joining me to discuss this is James Blitz, one of the FT's leader writers.

James, let's set this up exactly what's going on here,

what is the big case and why is the government so agitated towards Apple around it.

Very roughly ever since Edward Snowden made his revelations about mass surveillance by U.S. and U.K intelligence services

there's been a huge amount of tension between U.S. tech companies and Western intelligence agencies.

The tech companies say, we need to do everything possible to protect the information of our customers.

The intelligence services are saying, we're facing a massive terrorist threat from ISIS,

we need to have some penetration of those services even when they are encrypted.

What's happened here is that Apple has basically said defiantly that it is not going to help the FBI

on what is a very big test case regarding the San Bernardino killings.

Now this is the thin end of the wedge though,

I mean, this is the government's case is that this is very specific about one particular phone of one of the attackers.

The tech industry thus says, probably legitimately, that actually this has much broader implications for how privacy's protected you mentioned Edward Snowden.

Consumers themselves are saying we want to have much more privacy in our devices

and at the same time the implications... much further than just this one company and this one device.

Well I think ever since the Snowden revelations happened,

the U.S. tech companies, all tech companies, are entitled to look very carefully at any request from intelligence services for this kind of information.

That's absolutely right, they've got to be careful.

But in this particular case, the question is, is this justified?

What you're talking about here is a killing by U.S. citizens on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.

This is not some fishing expedition by the FBI, they're actually looking at a specific case.

And what they want to do is, get hold of the data, which was on the phone on one of the perpetrators in that killing

that looks pretty cupboard bottom to me.

Now the question then is: If they accede to this request, is something substantially done to make the iPhone vulnerable,

that's where the debate is.

And of course that is the case, isn't it?

Because right now the argument that Apple put forward is that no one can crack into an iPhone

and that's one of its, both key selling points, but one of the things that appeals to consumers and citizens around privacy.

If they create this software to do what the FBI is asking it to do,

it makes it inherently a much more breakable a device than it ever has been.

It is the argument that Apple makes, but it's an argument that I would reject, basically.

I think yes, what the FBI is asking for is the creation of something that could potentially be a master key.

But it's not as though Apple is going to be handing something over, as far as I can see, to the FBI

that they can then use willy-nilly, whenever they want, in any situation they want.

They are getting this, they would be getting this under a specific judicial order.

Say they wanted to look at another phone in another situation, they would again have to get another judicial order,

so I'm not convinced that there are some kind of blanket permission that's being given on surveillance here by the FBI is asking for from Apple.

But of course it's not just the FBI, isn't it

There are repressive regimes to exterior ones like China, the Middle East, Russia,

where the scruples are less gone through and the systems are less robust, maybe than in the U.S.

And the implication, or the argument of the tech companies is that,

look, if we do it here, that's going to give all of us and the government the same right to access request,

and that's going to pose big challenges for companies like Apple or Google in China.

Again, that's something that has to be considered,

and one understands what Apple's commercial concerns are,

because in the end this is about a commercial concern.

People want to be sure if they've got the iPhone, they're working in China, that this isn't going to happen.

But this is a very specific case where the request that's being made in this case is quite justified

and one could, for example, imagine a case, say in China,

which the Chinese authorities wanted assistance with a specific act of murder that had taken place

and one could imagine that, of course,

if there's a case in which the Chinese are asking Apple for some kind of master key in order to look at dissidence

or whatever then clearly Apple should resist.

I didn't see though, that those issues have necessarily changed as a result of this particular case.

But just to be clear, it's not just a consumer and a capitalist issue,

it's not just about selling more products,

also a moral and ethical argument, isn't it?

Because frankly, unless if the tech companies accede to this in the U.S.,

then that opens up a can of worms that is impossible to kind of put back in.

What it boils down to in the end, is whether you believe as I believe,

that there is no such thing as a right to absolute privacy.

In the end, there must always be circumstances in which security services in a state are in very specific circumstances

able to access information in order to protect the wider public and protect national security.

I do think that that is a principle that can be justified.

In my view, Apple and other tech companies need to accept that principle.

That doesn't mean that they've got to give ground on everything,

they of course they've got to scrutinize everything on a case-by-case basis.

But I think our argument has always been that they should do everything possible to help the authorities

in cases where there really is a strong argument for some kind of assistance being given.

Thanks James very much for sharing with us.