Lots of great points being made here. I think it's a slippery slope leading to a steep, ice-covered cliff. Maybe it's a separate issue, but one of the only bulwarks we have against the encroaching police state is the 4th amendment that is ignored more and more at all levels by FISA court abuses, secret police "Stingrays," the massive increase in "no-knock" full swat-team raids for minor offenses (in which many innocent people have been injured or killed), warrantless personal and car searches on no pc or pretext whatsoever (which I have personally witnessed), etc.

Normally I'd be the 1st one to rail against the power of a mega-corporation like Apple (probably on my ipad or iphone, lol), but given all that is potentially at stake, this seems like a major government overreach.