People have long worried about technology invading their lives. The front cover of Newsweek magazine, illustrated by a telephone, camera and tape recorder, once captured those fears, asking: “Is Privacy Dead?” The date: July 1970. 人们仍然担忧技术侵略自己的生活。《新闻周刊》(Newsweek)曾刻画出这种惧怕心理，它在封面上刊出电话、照相机和录音机的图片，并质问道：“隐私该死了吗？”当时是1970年7月。Since then, we have seen the mass introduction of personal devices such as laptop computers, smartphones and health monitors. Today, more than 6bn such devices are connected to the internet. According to Gartner, a technology research company, 5.5m are being added each day. Most of them are vulnerable to being hacked by those ingenious or devious enough. We truly live in a golden age of surveillance, in which every step we take and every heart flutter we make can be recorded, for better or worse. 自那以来，我们看见笔记本电脑、智能手机和身体健康监测器等个人设备大量经常出现。

现在，逾60亿台此类设备与互联网连接。技术研究公司Gartner的数据表明，联网设备在以每天550万部的速度减少。其中大部分设备很更容易遭到那些充足机灵或阴险的黑客侵略。

我们知道生活在一个监控的黄金时代，我们回头的每一步以及我们的每一次心颤都可以被记录下来，无论是好还是怕。Our governments are desperate for us to keep that information secure — but, understandably, they also want selective access to that mass of data when national security demands. The technology companies, which often stand between governments and users, have mostly been happy to comply with lawful requests for such data. 我们的政府迫切希望我们维护这些信息的安全性，但可以解读的是，它们也期望在国家安全性必须时，可以有选择地大量获取数据。常常摆动于政府和用户之间的科技公司大多乐意因应有关调取此类数据的合法催促。Apple’s latest transparency report, covering the first six months of 2015, records that the company received 3,824 requests for device information from US law enforcement authorities. It provided data in 81 per cent of those cases. 苹果公司(Apple)在涵括2015年上半年的近期透明度报告中回应，期内该公司接到美国执法人员部门3824宗调取设备信息的催促。

它在81%的案件中获取了数据。The company operates a 24-hour hotline to respond to such requests and promptly helped the police investigate the San Bernardino attacks last year when two Islamist terrorists murdered 14 people. But when the FBI later demanded that Apple write special software to help crack a locked iPhone used by one of the killers, the company resisted, claiming this could jeopardise the security of all iPhone users. The FBI accused the company of obstructing its investigation. A heated row has ended up in court. 该公司有24小时热线电话对此此类催促，并在去年两名伊斯兰恐怖分子射杀14人的圣贝纳迪诺攻击事件再次发生后很快协助警方进行调查。但是后来在美国联邦调查局(FBI)拒绝苹果撰写类似软件以协助关卡其中一位凶手的iPhone手机的时候，该公司不予了拒绝接受，并声称这有可能危害所有iPhone用户的安全性。FBI谴责苹果公司阻碍调查。

双方争执不下，最后闹上了法庭。This month, the FBI hit the pause button on those legal proceedings, saying it might have found another way of cracking the iPhone. Nevertheless, the case raises important issues of principle and precedent that resonate in all democratic countries trying to balance the demands of security against the rights of privacy. In spite of the odium heaped upon the company, Apple has done the right thing to stress-test these issues in court. 本月，FBI对涉及法律诉讼按下了停止按钮，回应寻找了别的关卡iPhone的方法。

然而，该案明确提出了最重要的原则和判例问题，这些问题在所有企图均衡安全性市场需求和隐私权利的民主国家都引发了相当大反响。尽管苹果遭许多人的不满，但该公司把这些问题获得法庭上展开“压力测试”是准确的。

As the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil rights organisation, has argued in a court submission: “If the government succeeds in this case, the relationship between technology providers and users will be forever altered.” 正如公民权利的组织“民主科技中心”(Center for Democracy and Technology)在递交给法庭的证词中坚称的那样：“如果美国政府输掉这场官司，那技术提供者和用户之间的关系将不会被总有一天转变。” This is not the first time US law enforcement agencies have tried to force Apple to override its security procedures, and on occasion the company has complied. Last year, however, at the invitation of a New York judge, Apple contested such an order in a case involving a drug dealer who subsequently pleaded guilty. In February, that judge ruled in the company’s favour. 这并非美国执法人员部门第一次企图强制苹果跨过其安全性程序，苹果有时也服从命令。然而去年在一起牵涉到一位毒贩的案件中（毒贩后来无罪了），苹果在一位纽约法官的引领下，对一项类似于命令明确提出了异议。

今年2月，该法官作出了对苹果不利的判决。Even though the New York and San Bernardino cases differ in important respects, the ruling by Judge James Orenstein is worth reading because of the arguments he highlighted. 尽管纽约毒贩案和圣贝纳迪诺枪击案不存在许多根本性有所不同，但该案法官詹姆斯奥伦斯坦(James Orenstein)在裁决书中明确提出的论点有一点一读书。The issue of principle concerns whether a company can be conscripted by the government into taking actions that it believes endanger its users’ rights and its commercial interests. It is one thing to hand over all accessible data upon receipt of a lawful request; it is quite another to be forced to create a backdoor into its own products. 所谓原则问题，就是政府否可以强制一家公司采行该公司指出不会严重威胁用户权利及自身商业利益的措施。

在接到合法催促后接管所有可取得的数据是一其实；不得不给自己的产品创立一道“后门”则是另一回事。Judging there was a significant legal difference between active obstruction and passive refusal, Mr Orenstein ruled: “Apple is not ‘thwarting’ anything — it is merely declining to offer assistance.” 奥伦斯坦指出主动阻碍和被动拒绝接受在法律上具有根本性区别，因此他裁决：“苹果没‘阻扰’任何事，它只是拒绝接受获取协助。

” The issue of precedent revolves around whether it is appropriate for the government to use the All Writs Act of 1789 to force Apple to comply with its demands, as it has tried to do in both cases. Mr Orenstein concluded it was not, given that Congress had recently rejected legislation granting such powers. 判例问题则牵涉到政府援引1789年法案《All Writs Act》强制苹果遵从其拒绝的作法否合理，这两起案件中政府都企图这么做到。奥伦斯坦的结论是，鉴于国会最近拒绝接受就彰显这种权力法律，政府这么做到并不合理。The judge called for further debate in Congress between legislators who understood the technological realities of a world that their predecessors could not begin to conceive. “It would betray our constitutional heritage and our people’s claim to democratic governance for a judge to pretend that our Fathers already had that debate, and ended it, in 1789,” he concluded. 这位法官敦促，对前人不得而知想象的现实技术世界有所理解的议员们应当在国会进行更进一步辩论。

他总结道：“如果一名法官假装国父们在1789年进行过、并且早已完结了这场辩论，那就有悖我们的宪法传统以及人民关于民主管理的主张。” Mr Orenstein’s ruling is far from the final judgment in the broader debate. The Department of Justice is appealing against his decision. This may all seem a messy process, but it can sometimes prove to be the useful means by which democracies grope towards greater legal clarity. 奥伦斯坦的判决远非更加普遍辩论的最后结论。

美国司法部于是以针对他的判决明确提出裁决。这看上去或许不会是一个恐慌的过程，但它有时有可能被证明为民主国家探寻如何提升法律清晰度的有益途径。

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