Tim Cook is kind of a major badass in my eyes, now. If you've been reading the news at all as of recent, you've probably seen the story about the FBI pushing to get a backdoor into the iOS systems from Apple in order to unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernadino attackers.
That absolutely cannot, and should not, happen.
The FBI says that will only use the backdoor to get into the ONE phone, but the FBI and the NSA see "one phone" and "one iOS backdoor" like we see "one bite of chocolate ice cream." It's never just one. The FBI and NSA have already been all over Apple's asshole (which, frankly, is Tim Cook's job) over iMessages being the choice tool being used by terrorists thus far because it's nearly fucking impossible to break into and see unless you have physical access to the phone itself. The FBI hasn't done it yet, and they have been wasting a lot of manpower trying to.
So, obviously, the next step for the FBI is to just ask Apple to give them a backdoor. But then Apple put their nearly-impossibly-sized cock right on the table and asked the FBI to kiss it while Tim Cook watches.
The FBI probably (make that most definitely) has a backdoor into Microsoft's systems and phones and has a way of breaking into it if they "feel it's necessary" (which is practically "whenever the fuck we see someone that is other than white using that fucking phone), but Apple refuses to allow the FBI to have such a potentially damaging backdoor into their systems. There are multiple reasons why this shouldn't be done:
1) Getting the San Bernadino's phone and unlocking it NOW is like waiting a few years after WWII to learn what that Hitler guy was all about. It's done. Over. There isn't any information that is on that phone that needs to be read, especially now that the REST OF THE FUCKING WORLD KNOWS THAT THE FBI IS TRYING TO GET INTO IT. There really isn't any feasible reason the FBI would want to get into it unless they want to read texts about the attack and beforehand. Maybe some cat memes along the way.
2) With the above point, we can assume that the FBI would be keeping the backdoor for later instances of terrorism and "terrorism prevention" (logging and cataloging phone calls, IPs, messages, and anything we can get our hands on from anyone deemed "suspicious" by the FBI, which is practically anyone who is even slightly tan). When you lose your security as a nation in order to stop terrorism, we are being attacked by terrorism. Terrorism is nothing but instilling fear into a group of people. You don't even really have to act on it, threats are enough. If you send an entire nation into such a frenzy that the government itself insists on breaking into "one phone" using "one backdoor," the terrorists have most definitely won. There don't have to be attacks on US soil for us to be basically led like dogs by the hypothetical notion of a terrorist attack, there have to be government-issued backdoors into phones and information systems, a loss of security, IP monitoring, right-wing politicians saying that we should throw people of a certain religion out of the country, anything of the sort. And with the FBI backdoor in place, we have all of them. If the FBI gets the backdoor, and Donald Trump doesn't shut the fuck up, and the NSA keeps doing the highly illegal bullshit it's doing, then we live under terrorism. That's why this case is so important: it's the case of whether or not we admit to ourselves that we are giving up large chunks of our freedom in order to prevent ourselves from hypothetical situations.