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Americans following the smartphone encryption fight between Apple ( AAPL ) and the FBI lean toward supporting the feds, according to a new IBD/TIPP poll. Of the 644 survey respondents who said they have been following the story, the largest percentage (49%) says Apple should help the FBI unlock the iPhone at the center of the San Bernardino shooting case. On the flipside, 37% of respondents said Apple should not help unlock the phone. The rest were not sure or declined to answer. On Thursday, Apple asked a federal judge to reverse her order compelling the company to work with the FBI to hack a password-protected iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attack. In a court filing, Apple said the order “creates an unprecedented burden on Apple and violates Apple’s First Amendment rights against compelled speech.” On Feb. 16, U.S. Magistrate Sheri Pym ordered Apple to provide “reasonable technical assistance” to the FBI to unlock an iPhone belonging to Syed Farook, one of the killers in the San Bernardino shootings. The order calls for Apple to create software that can get around or disable the security option that erases data from an iPhone after 10 unsuccessful attempts to unlock it. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, shot and killed 14 people on Dec. 2. The radicalized Muslim couple, described in press reports as supporters of terror group ISIS, later died in a gun battle with police. For the IBD/TIPP poll, TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence conducted phone interviews with 900 U.S. adults from Feb. 19 through Feb. 24. The respondents familiar with the Apple-FBI court case were asked: “In your opinion, should Apple unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s smartphone for the FBI’s investigation of the case, or should it not unlock the phone since such an action would set a precedent that could be misused in the future?” The more educated the respondent, the more likely they were to be against the government’s efforts to break the iPhone security. Among high school-educated respondents, 55% supported the FBI’s case. That compares with 46% for college graduates, TechnoMetrica said. Equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats (53%) supported the FBI’s efforts to force Apple to hack the iPhone. Independents were split, with 44% siding with Apple and 43% siding with the FBI, the IBD/TIPP poll found. Most Women Say Apple Should Unlock Phone Men were more evenly divided, with 46% in favor of unlocking the phone vs. 43% against, the poll showed. However, the majority of women surveyed (51%) said they thought Apple should help unlock the phone, with 31% saying Apple shouldn’t. “If we were living during a more peaceful time, and the persistent threat of terrorism was not a major concern in today’s world, Americans might have appreciated Apple’s position regarding the protection of privacy,” TechnoMetrica President Raghavan Mayur told IBD. “However, especially after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, the public exhibits a heightened sensitivity to the threat of terrorism, and accordingly, assigns great importance to protecting national security.” On Wednesday, an online poll by Reuters/Ipsos found that 46% of respondents agree with Apple’s position in the case, 35% disagree, and the rest did not know. On Tuesday, a poll by the Pew Research Center found Americans slightly in favor of the government’s position. Some 51% of respondents said Apple should unlock the iPhone to assist the FBI investigation. But 38% said Apple should not unlock the phone to ensure the security of its other users’ information. The remaining 11% didn’t have an opinion. Tech policy blog Techdirt on Thursday criticized both the Reuters/Ipsos and Pew surveys, saying their questions were wrong, misleading or simply leading. Scalper1 News
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