A week after a senior agent of The FBI stated that Apple is a company with evil employees, the head of the San Francisco division of the famous government agency comes with a different story vis-à-vis the relationship with Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC),. John Bennett is the one who speaks in favorable terms about the Apple company, stating that the agency "loves" the Apple company and that the relationship between them has significantly improved in recent years, despite the disputes.
Bennett was one of the FBI agents actively involved in the San Bernadino terrorist case, which generated a huge scandal between Apple and the agency, after the company refused to unlock the terrorist's iPhone. Despite this dispute, Bennett says that the relationship between the FBI and Apple is a very good one and that that incident did not cause a change of opinion regarding the future relationship between the two entities.
"...it was clear the relationship between Apple and law enforcement (in San Francisco at least) was much closer than the stream of media stories would have one believe. He had much praise for Apple, particularly for its direct assistance for law enforcement, not just at the FBI but at local police departments too."
The FBI also has a lot of respect for Apple, stating that both the company and its employees are in many cases victims of hackers, being constantly attacked by them. The FBI also collaborates with Apple to help it identify the people who attack its servers, or who attack including its employees to extract information from the company's servers, the understanding between the entities being very important.
"From our experience in San Francisco, we have meetings with Apple and they are not only a great company but they are also victims. Their stuff gets hit and their employees get in harm's way, so they call us locally on a lot of things they need help for."
Interestingly, Bennett also understands why Apple increases the security of the iOS operating system, despite the fact that this makes it very difficult for criminals to access data from iPhones and iPads. To the same extent, the FBI also understands Apple's bureaucracy regarding the requests for accessing data from iCloud, and what he says puts in a very interesting perspective the way a part of the FBI sees the way the Apple company works.
"They're in an interesting environment where they have to serve a legal process from agencies, from FBI to GCHQ to Chinese to Russian services. They are trying to make sure everyone is playing from a level field."
