"Respectfully, that's bullshit."

Edward Snowden, the whistleblower whose NSA revelations sparked a debate on mass surveillance, has waded into the arguments over the FBI’s attempt to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone 5C of one of the San Bernardino shooters.
The FBI says that only Apple can deactivate certain passcode protections on the iPhone, which will allow law enforcement to guess the passcode by using brute-force.
Talking via video link from Moscow to the Common Cause Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference, Snowden said: “The FBI says Apple has the ‘exclusive technical means’ to unlock the phone. Respectfully, that’s bullshit.”

When one whistleblower can excite more credulity than the U.S. government and its well-manicured minions, it really is time to reconsider the clout attributed to caring manicures. What would the fallout be is someone simply told the truth? True, it might cut into a well-appointed funding trough, but that loss might be offset by the fact that energy could now be expended on items that don't necessarily feather your nest or, coincidentally, needlessly frighten that constituency you are claiming to protect... a win-win situation when it comes to husbanding assets.