Crack the code

When he’s right, he’s right. Taking a brief break from defending his boss’ legally indefensible impeachment maneuvers, Attorney General Bill Barr has escalated his request to tech giant Apple to help unlock two phones used by a Saudi national who killed three people at a naval air station in Pensacola, Fla., last month.

In this, Barr walks nobly in lockstep with frequent courtroom adversary Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, who for years has been begging one of the most powerful corporations on Earth to rejigger its hardware and software so that they can comply with legitimate search warrants issued by judges. His office now obtains an average of 1,600 devices a year, unknown numbers of which hold evidence key to convicting the guilty and exonerating the innocent.

Apple pleads powerlessness, saying it’s giving consumers sole power to control the information on their devices. But in the Pensacola case, the company has already turned over materials from the gunman’s iCloud account, undercutting the claim that personal data is sacrosanct.

Google plays a similar game, insisting upon strong encryption on its smartphones while complying with many thousands of government requests on its other products, including Gmail.

We don’t laugh off the concern that in many parts of the world, dictators champ at the bit to use encryption backdoors to hunt perceived enemies of the state. The onus is on Apple to reject nefarious requests even as it complies with legitimate ones.

But in America, under our Constitution, tech industry absolutism must never become a suicide pact.