Today the Apple engineers suggest that might not perform the work to de-encrypt the Iphone. What can the FBI or the State do about that? I think, nothing at all. That is the problem with what is known at law as "specific performance." It's very hard to get courts to order people to do a thing. Courts will order money damages, but to do a thing is difficult if not impossible to enforce. Suppose the court orders a police officer to stand with a gun at the head of an engineer while he writes code. Likely he will write away, but what will he write? How will the court/police officer assess if he is resisting the court's order or simply that the order is difficult to perform.
If you're OK with Apple resisting an order to do a thing it thinks should not be done, then why are you OK with another court ordering a baker to bake a cake for a wedding she disapproves of? What's the difference in principle? I understand the difference in the state of the law, but the law is an ass and has been bent to such a pretzel that is no argument at all. If one person can be ordered by a court to work at a task they reject as abhorrent at the risk of loss of their business, their financial well-being or their lives, why is that less objectionable than an Apple engineer refusing to become an indentured servant?
