People have long worried about technology invading their lives. The front cover of Newsweek magazine, illustrated by a telephone, camera and tape recorder, once captured those fears, asking: “Is Privacy Dead?” The date: July 1970.

人们一直担心技术入侵自己的生活。《新闻周刊》(Newsweek)曾刻画出这种害怕心理，它在封面上刊登电话、相机和录音机的图片，并质问道：“隐私完蛋了吗？”当时是1970年7月。

Since then, we have seen the mass introduction of personal devices such as laptop computers, smartphones and health monitors. Today, more than 6bn such devices are connected to the internet. According to Gartner, a technology research company, 5.5m are being added each day. Most of them are vulnerable to being hacked by those ingenious or devious enough. We truly live in a golden age of surveillance, in which every step we take and every heart flutter we make can be recorded, for better or worse.

自那以来，我们看到笔记本电脑、智能手机和健康监测器等个人设备大量出现。现在，逾60亿台此类设备与互联网相连。技术研究公司Gartner的数据显示，联网设备在以每天550万部的速度增加。其中大部分设备很容易遭受那些足够机灵或狡猾的黑客入侵。我们真的生活在一个监控的黄金时代，我们走的每一步以及我们的每一次心颤都可以被记录下来，无论是好还是坏。

Our governments are desperate for us to keep that information secure — but, understandably, they also want selective access to that mass of data when national security demands. The technology companies, which often stand between governments and users, have mostly been happy to comply with lawful requests for such data.

我们的政府迫切希望我们保护这些信息的安全，但可以理解的是，它们也希望在国家安全需要时，可以有选择地大量获取数据。经常摇摆于政府和用户之间的科技公司大多乐于配合有关调取此类数据的合法请求。

Apple’s latest transparency report, covering the first six months of 2015, records that the company received 3,824 requests for device information from US law enforcement authorities. It provided data in 81 per cent of those cases.

苹果公司(Apple)在涵盖2015年上半年的最新透明度报告中表示，期内该公司收到美国执法部门3824宗调取设备信息的请求。它在81%的案件中提供了数据。

The company operates a 24-hour hotline to respond to such requests and promptly helped the police investigate the San Bernardino attacks last year when two Islamist terrorists murdered 14 people. But when the FBI later demanded that Apple write special software to help crack a locked iPhone used by one of the killers, the company resisted, claiming this could jeopardise the security of all iPhone users. The FBI accused the company of obstructing its investigation. A heated row has ended up in court.

该公司有24小时热线电话回应此类请求，并在去年两名伊斯兰恐怖分子枪杀14人的圣贝纳迪诺袭击事件发生后迅速帮助警方展开调查。但是后来在美国联邦调查局(FBI)要求苹果编写特殊软件以帮助解锁其中一位凶手的iPhone手机的时候，该公司予以了拒绝，并宣称这可能危害所有iPhone用户的安全。FBI指责苹果公司妨碍调查。双方争执不下，最终闹上了法庭。

This month, the FBI hit the pause button on those legal proceedings, saying it might have found another way of cracking the iPhone. Nevertheless, the case raises important issues of principle and precedent that resonate in all democratic countries trying to balance the demands of security against the rights of privacy. In spite of the odium heaped upon the company, Apple has done the right thing to stress-test these issues in court.

本月，FBI对相关法律诉讼按下了暂停按钮，表示找到了别的解锁iPhone的方法。然而，该案提出了重要的原则和判例问题，这些问题在所有试图平衡安全需求和隐私权利的民主国家都引起了很大反响。尽管苹果遭到许多人的反感，但该公司把这些问题拿到法庭上进行“压力测试”是正确的。

As the Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil rights organisation, has argued in a court submission: “If the government succeeds in this case, the relationship between technology providers and users will be forever altered.”

正如公民权利组织“民主科技中心”(Center for Democracy and Technology)在提交给法庭的证词中辩称的那样：“如果美国政府打赢这场官司，那技术提供者和用户之间的关系将会被永远改变。”

This is not the first time US law enforcement agencies have tried to force Apple to override its security procedures, and on occasion the company has complied. Last year, however, at the invitation of a New York judge, Apple contested such an order in a case involving a drug dealer who subsequently pleaded guilty. In February, that judge ruled in the company’s favour.

这并非美国执法部门第一次试图强迫苹果越过其安全程序，苹果有时也服从命令。然而去年在一起涉及一位毒贩的案件中（毒贩后来认罪了），苹果在一位纽约法官的引导下，对一项类似命令提出了异议。今年2月，该法官做出了对苹果有利的裁决。

Even though the New York and San Bernardino cases differ in important respects, the ruling by Judge James Orenstein is worth reading because of the arguments he highlighted.

尽管纽约毒贩案和圣贝纳迪诺枪击案存在许多重大不同，但该案法官詹姆斯•奥伦斯坦(James Orenstein)在裁决书中提出的论点值得一读。

The issue of principle concerns whether a company can be conscripted by the government into taking actions that it believes endanger its users’ rights and its commercial interests. It is one thing to hand over all accessible data upon receipt of a lawful request; it is quite another to be forced to create a backdoor into its own products.

所谓原则问题，就是政府是否可以强迫一家公司采取该公司认为会危及用户权利及自身商业利益的措施。在收到合法请求后移交所有可获得的数据是一回事；被迫给自己的产品创建一道“后门”则是另一回事。

Judging there was a significant legal difference between active obstruction and passive refusal, Mr Orenstein ruled: “Apple is not ‘thwarting’ anything — it is merely declining to offer assistance.”

奥伦斯坦认为主动妨碍和被动拒绝在法律上有着重大区别，因此他裁定：“苹果没有‘阻挠’任何事，它只是拒绝提供帮助。”

The issue of precedent revolves around whether it is appropriate for the government to use the All Writs Act of 1789 to force Apple to comply with its demands, as it has tried to do in both cases. Mr Orenstein concluded it was not, given that Congress had recently rejected legislation granting such powers.

判例问题则涉及政府援引1789年法案《All Writs Act》强迫苹果服从其要求的做法是否恰当，这两起案件中政府都试图这么做。奥伦斯坦的结论是，鉴于国会最近拒绝就赋予这种权力立法，政府这么做并不恰当。

The judge called for further debate in Congress between legislators who understood the technological realities of a world that their predecessors could not begin to conceive. “It would betray our constitutional heritage and our people’s claim to democratic governance for a judge to pretend that our Fathers already had that debate, and ended it, in 1789,” he concluded.

这位法官呼吁，对前人无从想象的现实技术世界有所了解的议员们应该在国会展开进一步辩论。他总结道：“如果一名法官假装国父们在1789年展开过、并且已经结束了这场辩论，那就有悖我们的宪法传统以及人民关于民主治理的主张。”

Mr Orenstein’s ruling is far from the final judgment in the broader debate. The Department of Justice is appealing against his decision. This may all seem a messy process, but it can sometimes prove to be the useful means by which democracies grope towards greater legal clarity.

奥伦斯坦的裁决远非更广泛辩论的最终结论。美国司法部正针对他的裁决提出上诉。这看起来也许会是一个混乱的过程，但它有时可能被证明为民主国家探索如何提高法律清晰度的有益途径。