AAPL Apple Inc

By Daisuke Wakabayashi and Devlin Barrett 

Last month, Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey faced off in a meeting to discuss how Washington and Silicon Valley could work together to combat terrorism.

During the Jan. 8 meeting in San Jose, Calif., attended by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Mr. Cook urged government officials to publicly acknowledge the benefits of encryption, according to people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Comey said companies should work with the government to devise a way to get court-ordered access to data sought in investigations.

Neither man mentioned their then-secret dispute over an iPhone belonging to Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters in the Dec. 2 attack in San Bernardino, Calif., according to people familiar with the matter. Last week, the dispute spilled into the open after a judge ordered Apple to help the Justice Department circumvent security features on the phone.

Now, Messrs. Cook and Comey are the standard-bearers in a national debate over the balance between security and privacy, playing out as much in the court of public opinion as the court of law.

Within a few hours of each other Sunday night and Monday morning, each man took to the Internet to make his case.

"We can't look the survivors in the eye, or ourselves in the mirror, if we don't follow this lead," Mr. Comey wrote on the Lawfare blog. He said unlocking the phone is important because it may hold clues to finding other terrorists.

Mr. Cook replied with an email to employees, shared with reporters, calling the government's move "a dangerous precedent that threatens everyone's civil liberties." He urged prosecutors to withdraw their demands and suggested that the government form a commission to address the thorny problems posed by the growing use of encryption.

"Everybody agrees this is an important policy question," said Theodore Boutrous, an outside lawyer for Apple, in an interview Monday. He said Congress and the president should strike the balance between the privacy of citizens and the needs of law enforcement. Apple is expected to file its official response to the government in court Friday.

For now, the public is siding with Mr. Comey. A survey published by the Pew Research Center on Monday found 51% of respondents said that Apple should help the government unlock Mr. Farook's phone, compared with 38% who said it should not and 11% who didn't have an opinion.

Mr. Cook's position on privacy and security--along with many of Apple's senior executives--has hardened over time, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple has adopted more stringent security and encrypted more of its user data. Mr. Cook came to believe that privacy is a basic human right that Apple needs to support, these people said.

The soft-spoken Mr. Cook will refuse to budge on an issue if he feels that he is in the right, according to people who have worked with him. In a 2014 interview with Charlie Rose, Mr. Cook said "they would have to cart us out in a box before we would" allow outsiders including the National Security Agency to create a "backdoor" to access users' personal data.

A company spokeswoman declined to comment. She also declined to make Mr. Cook available for an interview, pointing back to Mr. Cook's letter last week to customers on the issue.

Mr. Cook keeps pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy hanging in his office, because he respects their willingness to take principled--and sometimes unpopular--stands on important issues, he has said. During a 2013 speech at the United Nations, he quoted Mr. King saying "the time is always right to do what is right."

Mr. Comey has also developed a reputation as unafraid to stand on principle. A career prosecutor who became a senior Justice Department official in the Bush administration, he was best known for refusing in 2004 to approve bulk surveillance programs favored by the Bush administration until changes were made. While the disagreement played out in secret at the time, it was eventually revealed that he and others had threatened to resign.

He frequently offers this mantra: "It's hard to hate up close." It is his way of saying that people in disputes should sit down and air out their differences face to face, because that is the best way to reach an agreement, he has said.

In his fight with Apple, Mr. Comey is testing that principle--so far to no avail.

At the January meeting, the two sides talked in general terms, according to people familiar with the discussions. That meeting produced no breakthroughs and, if anything, left the two sides hardened in their positions, these people said.

The public statements by Messrs. Comey and Cook reinforce the view both sides are aware that any legal ruling in the case is likely to be impermanent, because Apple or other firms may develop new programs that protect data more securely and make old rules obsolete.

Many law-enforcement officials acknowledge that technology will always outpace the law. For that reason, they argue, it is even more important that public opinion influence the way companies like Apple build their devices.

Sara Randazzo contributed to this article.

Write to Daisuke Wakabayashi at Daisuke.Wakabayashi@wsj.com and Devlin Barrett at devlin.barrett@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 22, 2016 20:08 ET (01:08 GMT)

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