It is important to remember that Apple have indeed provided assistance in this particular case. The point of contention is that the security and privacy of every legitimate Apple user would be compromised if they were to comply with the court order. On 26/02/2016 20:50, kictanet-request@lists.kictanet.or.ke wrote:

Message: 3 Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 12:38:14 -0500 From: Lawrence Njogu <lnjogu@hotmail.com> To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Of Data Security, Terrorism, National Security and Marketing Message-ID: <SNT151-W6131875ADC13D8FA554174DAA70@phx.gbl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

While the iPhone was expressly designed to prevent the sort of thing the government is asking for, Apple has a moral obligation to help. However, there is no real limitation if the federal government, through a judge's order, can ask Apple (or other vendor in the future) to redesign their own products to meet the demand. So, from Apple's point of view, they do not want to set precedence to a ruling that has far reaching implications, not just in information technology, but also in other fields...i.e in medicine. This is a very complicated issue!!