Trump: 'Boycott Apple' Over Refusal To Help FBI Hack Terrorist's iPhone
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – At a campaign speech in South Carolina on Friday, Republican candidate Donald Trump didn't mince words when asked about Apple's refusal to obey a judge's order to break the encryption of a phone used by a gunman in the San Bernardino massacre.
A federal judge has ordered Apple Inc. to help the FBI hack into an encrypted iPhone used by Syed Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in December.
Specifically, the government wants Apple to bypass a self-destruct feature that erases the phone's data after too many unsuccessful attempts to guess the passcode. Apple has helped the government before in this and previous cases, but this time Apple CEO Tim Cook said no and Apple is appealing the order.
"What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such a time that they give that security number," he told his supporters.
Trump said Farook's employer actually owns the phone.
"First of all the phone is not owned by this young thug who killed all these people," Trump told his supporters. "The phone is owned by the government. It's not even his phone."
"Tim Cook is looking to do a big number, probably to show how liberal he is," he continued. "But Apple should give up the security to find other people (terrorists)."
Following his call for an Apple boycott, a series of tweets on different subjects were issued on Trump's verified Twitter account, each of them showing as being sent from an iPhone.
As Twitter users and media outlets began highlighting the apparent discrepancy, Trump was again ready with a response:
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