After Tim Cook’s eloquent letter explaining why Apple wouldn’t help the FBI get encrypted data from the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, the internet looked to Google to take a similar stand. Now Google CEO Sundar Pichai has posted five tweets that seem to show he agrees with Cook.
Edward Snowden chimed in among the many voices online today that urged Google to speak up:
The call is for more than just good vibes between similar corporations. Cook has always claimed that Apple doesn’t want its users’ data. As he told Charlie Rose in 2014: “We’re not reading your email. We’re not reading your iMessage. If the government laid a subpoena on us to get your iMessage, we can’t provide it. It’s encrypted and we don’t have the key.”
But it’s actually a bigger deal for Google to come forward and speak out about this. Android is open-source, for one, but Google is also based on a business model of collecting data from its users.
Here’s what Pichai posted:
While that’s not quite as forceful as Cook’s statement, I think we can assume they’re in this together—at least in the sense that the FBI is asking too much.
AP Photo/Altaf Qadri