Agreed. I certainly appreciate Apple's stance on privacy lately, but it doesn't seem reasonable for a corporation (particularly one based in a different country!) to be willing or capable of forcing the government's hand.
Turn it around, does it seem reasonable that an overseas government should be able to force a US company to make changes to their OS and add functionality it was never designed to have?
If Germany really needed it, they could take Apple to court.
I am sure Siemens would be horrified it it was turned around and the US govt started demanding they modify their industrial controllers, famously targeted by stuxnet, to allow them to be tracked more easily.
> does it seem reasonable that an overseas government should be able to force a US company to make changes to their OS and add functionality it was never designed to have
Yes, it actually does. I certainly don't like the idea of such an action being taken in practice, but isn't dictating that certain arbitrary requirements must be met in order to do business within a jurisdiction kind of a large part of the point of having a government in the first place? What's concerning to me about this case is that end users aren't even capable of opting in at present and that due to the time constraints involved Apple would appear to have a distinct advantage.
Note that the previous (somewhat similar) controversy in the US involving Apple was an issue specifically due to questions about constitutionally protected rights and federal government overreach.
