>[[...]

>To what extent and with what side effects? If to access the phone they had to disable all security for all users would that be appropriate? [...] //

I think I must have misunderstood the situation. As I understood we were talking about Apple having the capability to access their technology and them refusing to use it for individual cases following issue of a warrant and personal intervention of the SoS. That is an entirely different proposition to what you're suggesting - the a company be forced to design a system with a particular back door. That doesn't appear to be in the information I read about the IPB but I stand to be corrected as necessary.

If [as it appears to be the case here] Apple, say, have the capability to disable security on all phones then I can't see how the findings in this case change the ability of another state - China, SA, Syria, as your examples - to demand that Apple push changes to disable the security of phones. It's not like China will say 'oh, USA courts found it unconstitutional so we better not ask Apple to do it'.

FWIW I don't really trust the government; as you say "Bully for [me]" if I don't have things to hide. But I was attempting to answer the comments saying 'why isn't everyone up in arms, they're all sheeple'.

Another aspect is, your notional MP being snooped on for unwholesome reasons means that the entire fabric of the British legal and political system is corrupt. If we're at that point then I dare say the Secretary of State will just call in Apple bosses and have their partner's fingernails pulled until the bosses agree to push a firmware update.

48 man-weeks vs Apple's tens of thousands of man weeks per day [from 115k employees] seems pretty small cost. There's no reason Apple couldn't/shouldn't be compensated for that time. TBH in the USA situation it would surprise me if TLA-agencies wouldn't write the code (if they haven't already), they really only need Apple for the distribution keys I expect.

Good points but I'm afraid I remain as yet unswayed.