That poll asked respondents if "Apple should unlock the iPhone", failing to mention that doing so requires that Apple write new software it does not currently possess. Follow-up questions assessing respondents' knowledge of the factual steps required to comply would have brought a lot more clarity IMO.

Sure, but conflicts between public opinion and a corporation's favored policy often involve the public being underinformed about the technical details involved. The irony stands.

I see nothing ironic about me not wanting government backdoors built into my phone. I'm quite capable of forming my own opinion and I don't care about "public opinion". Especially in this case since I find the public opinion somewhat ridicilous and in extreme conflict with my view of the world.

You should never base your opinion on _who_ says stuff, that's childish. It's the content of the message that matters.

Sure, but a similar argument is made about the revolving door between the SEC and Wall St.

It's worth chewing on the juxtaposition, just to examine your own assumptions.

Please explain, I don't understand what you are talking about. What does SEC and Wall Street have to do with me not wanting my phone hacked?

A common public complaint about the SEC is that it is essentially filled with Wall Street insiders, so Wall Street is effectively only regulated by itself. The counterpoint is that experience is necessary to comprehend the technical details, and that outsiders lack that insight.

If the polling is taken at face value [0], the public would like to control Apple, whereas people who know tech are against such regulation.

Both situations are similar - industry autonomy versus unwashed public opinion. All lobbing has this same tension - the entities that stand to profit from something inevitable are the ones who understand it best. Feeling differently about each instance isn't hypocritical, it just means you should ponder the nuances for why.

[0] Modulo leading questions, framing, etc. I, for one, don't have a hard time believing the polls are roughly accurate. Groups of people are hysterical ugly creatures, led simply by scaremongering media.

Agreed 100%.

> requires that Apple write new software it does not currently posses

I'm not American, but how is this different from the demands imposed by CALEA? If the platform did not support wire taps, you would have to put in work on a feature which wasn't there to add wire tap capabilities.

And your point is Telecoms do additional work for law and security services - doing a on of build of ios is not a huge amount of work.

there was a time public opinion thought alcohol should be illegal. there was also a long stretch of time where public opinion thought jews and people of irish descent shouldn't have certain jobs.

public opinion is useless. the US is a country of laws, not men (people)

Meanwhile there is another poll with a different result http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-encryption-poll-idUS...

Yikes. I find the majority support on the second question particularly disturbing.

> second question

    The government should be able to look at data on Americans'
    smart phones in order to protect against terror threats. 

The presence or absence of a warrant is conspicuously absent. That question is carefully engineered to get a specific answer.

Exactly.

"The government should be able to do anything no matter how egregious and unconstitutional in order to prevent terrorist attacks and keep you safe" would get a whole lot more support than you'd like, too.

It's very important that governments do what is right, not what is popular. The worst of Popularism is all about short term revenge and reprisals.

Mob rule is not democracy, nor should it guide legislation.

Democracy is more or less "mob rule" by definition. Fortunately, it's rare to see democracy implemented in any group with more people than you can fit around a table. To protect against mob rule, we instead use a democratically elected republic as a specific check against emotional and easily influenced mob opinion.