硅谷大型科技公司齊聲聲援蘋果

America’s largest technology companies have joined Apple’s fight against the government over data protection and security, in an unusual display of unity by the Silicon Valley rivals.

美國大型科技公司紛紛加入蘋果(Apple)的戰隊，支持後者就數據保護和安全與美國政府進行鬥爭。這些相互競爭的硅谷公司在此事上表現出了異乎尋常的團結。

More than a dozen motions filed on Thursday sided with Apple as it tries to resist a demand to write software that would help the FBI unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. Civil liberties groups and IT trade associations lined up alongside dozens of law professors and cryptography experts, after Apple filed its own motion for the judicial order to be withdrawn last week.

週四，這些公司提交了十幾份動議，支持蘋果努力抵制一項要其編寫軟件幫美國聯邦調查局(FBI)解鎖聖貝納迪諾槍擊案兇手iPhone的要求。上週蘋果提交要求撤銷這一法庭令的動議後，公民自由組織、信息科技行業協會以及數十名法學教授和密碼學專家聯合起來站在蘋果一邊。

“If the government prevails, then this case will be the first of many requiring companies to degrade the security and to undermine the trust in their products so essential to privacy in the digital age,” the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in its brief.

美國公民自由聯盟(American Civil Liberties Union)在其案情摘要中寫道：“如果政府獲勝，那麼此案將催生許多要求企業降低安全和自毀人們對其產品信任的案子，而在這個數字化時代，安全和信任對於隱私有着至關重要的意義。”

James Comey, FBI chief, warned at a congressional hearing this week of the dangers of creating “warrant-proof spaces”, saying: “The tools we use to keep you safe are becoming less and less effective.”

FBI局長詹姆斯•科米(James Comey)本週在美國國會聽證會上針對造就“抗令狀空間”的危險發出警告，他表示：“我們用來保護人們安全的手段正逐漸失去效力。”

In one heavyweight grouping led by Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon, 15 tech companies collectively worth more than $2tn said the government’s order against Apple “exceeds the bounds of existing law and, when applied more broadly, will harm Americans’ security in the long run”.

以谷歌(Google)、微軟(Microsoft)、Facebook和亞馬遜(Amazon)爲首、合計市值超過2萬億美元的15家重量級科技公司表示，美國政府對蘋果的命令“逾越了現行法律的界限，若被更加廣泛地採用，終將損害美國人的安全。”

The companies, who also include Cisco, Dropbox, Snapchat and Yahoo and are together used by billions of people around the world, noted that they “often compete vigorously with Apple — and with each other” but “here speak in one voice because of the singular importance of this case to them and their customers”. Users were demanding increased protection from hackers as they store more and more personal information on devices such as smartphones, they said.

這些公司還包括思科(Cisco)、Dropbox、Snapchat和雅虎(Yahoo!)，它們在全世界合計擁有數十億用戶。這些公司指出，它們“與蘋果、以及彼此之間經常展開激烈競爭”，但“現在以一個聲音發聲，是因爲此案對它們以及它們的用戶有着獨特的重要性”。它們表示，隨着用戶往智能手機等設備裏存儲的個人信息越來越多，他們也在要求加強保護措施、防止黑客侵入。

While being careful to note that they were not “shielding those who break the law”, the group said it wanted to resist the government’s attempt to “commandeer a company’s own engineers to undermine their products’ data security features”. If their engineers were forced to rewrite their software in this way, “those new versions would not be the same product any more. Box would not be Box; Gmail would not be Gmail; WhatsApp would not be WhatsApp; and so on”.

這些企業謹慎地指出，它們並不是在“保護犯法者”，而是想抵制政府“強徵一家企業的工程師去破壞他們產品數據安全特性”的企圖。如果以這種方式迫使它們的工程師重寫它們的軟件，“那些新的版本將不再是原來的產品。Box將不再是Box，Gmail將不再是Gmail，WhatsApp將不再是WhatsApp，別的也是如此。”

A second group of tech companies including Airbnb, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit and eBay made a separate filing accusing the government of “circumventing the procedures adopted by Congress” to “enlist the judiciary in re-writing laws without engaging in an essential public debate”.

包括Airbnb、Twitter、領英(LinkedIn)、Reddit和eBay在內的另一羣科技公司也提交了動議，譴責政府“繞開國會通過的流程，在不展開必要的公開辯論的情況下就拉司法部門重寫法律。”