Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
– Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobedience (1849)
Yesterday, the New York Times published an extremely important article examining whether Apple engineers are prepared to potentially refuse government orders they deem unethical. If so, it would represent a historical and courageous moment of civil disobedience in the spirt of Edward Snowden, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Henry David Thoreau and countless others forgotten by the fog of history. Indeed, if we are to regain any semblance of freedom and liberty, we must rediscover our proud heritage of civil disobedience.
In the modern world, with so much government surveillance being done behind the scenes and via technology, we’ve become increasingly dependent on individuals within the tech sector to stand up and do the right thing. This puts us in a precarious situation, which is why we must be prepared to stand by and support any and all Apple employees who defend our civil liberties against the unconstitutional surveillance leviathan.
We learn from the New York Times:
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