Well, on the one hand you've got people like me...

We believe that a democratic government should be able to access personal devices, with a proper search warrant.

Like it or not, our civilization is under threat from serious criminals, and yes... "terrorists". That threat is only going to grow exponentially in coming decades.

As a private citizen/individual, all I really want, is sufficient security to stop the average friend, family-member, or work colleague from snooping on my smart phone, or PC. So a simple pin or password, is more than enough security for individuals like me, and will stop 90 percent of snooping. That's all I need.

So yes, I do HIGHLY value my privacy, so again I don't want average people in my circle of life/friends snooping at my private files.

(Not that I have big shocking secrets... the data files on my hard-drive consists of MP3 music files, several seasons of my favorite TV shows, MS-Word documents with several embarrassing failed attempts at a "great novel" and bad poetry, along with a thinly disguised folder featuring "Lesbians gone wild" type of photographs).

But at the same time, I would like to know that a democratically elected authority could get into hard-drives and phones, if facing a threat, or investigating, post-attack.

So people like me, feel that Apple is going too far, in opposing this.

ALSO... it's not like Apple Iphones are used to store national security secrets: they are simply consumer devices. So yes, put some strong security on there... but still, democratically elected governments should be able to hack-in if necessary, under proper warrant.

But there is the rub...

Many nonwestern and nondemocratic totalitarian and oppressive regimes would regularly bypass device security to oppress and gather information on it's citizens.

(Even western democractic nations would sometimes abuse this power.)

So in the end...

This issue is about the balance of the right to right to privacy, and the right for a government to legitimately defend it's nation... contrasted against the fact that those in power often abuse their status, and actively seek to hurt their citizens, rather than help or protect them.

It is a complex issue, with no easy answer.