It seems fairly unamimous here that the FBI is playing dirty. I hope that in non-tech circles, the view isn't too radically different, although I really doubt it.
I read a little bit more about the story, and apparently the FBI were the ones that went public with it. I assume knowing full-well that the "Apple supports Terrorsits!!" tagline will be smeared across the news. This is what prompted Mr. Cook to write an open-letter about it. I'm not sure if the public leak it was official, "unofficial", or unofficial.
It's very concerning across the board. They've been barking up the "we want total information access" tree for years. They applied publicity smear in a case that will make Apple look bad for resisting, and then play stupid on the topic of mass survailence. "Yeah, we just want this one little phone unlocked". That's like asking someone to build a hammer that will only break a specific window.
The Obama administration has been surprisingly heavy-handed in regards to anything relating to national security. It's possible that the admin is just too weak to keep them on a tight leash, but i doubt that's the case. Any party that's in power when/if a medium-to-large attack occurs will lose their seat in the finger-pointing fallout, so I'm betting the tactics are going to be a pernament feature of our country for decades - at least until time-wearyness and 'old news' syndrome sets in and the public stops caring.
