Re: What about forcing a phramaceutical company...
If a company has spent a billion dollars bringing a drug to market they wouldn't have done so without there being a large target market. Having discovered a drug and got it through approval they've spent a lot of money. They want to make that back. Just sitting on it gets them no return. Worst case they can license the production to another company for specific uses and get SOMETHING back. At the end of 17 years it becomes generic and anyone can make it (quite how the FDA seems to have screwed up generics is beyond me). After the approvals process that's more like 10 years.
You seem to be confused over the law. The FBI are trying to extend the reach of the All Writs act in order to force Apple to do something they don't want to do. Apple don't want to do it because it's bad precedent (no matter what the FBI would have you believe, having done this once there'd be a queue of government agencies and police forces demanding that they do it again). It would also be next to impossible to refuse the same aid to foreign governments like the Chinese. Apple aren't asking to be exempted from the law, they are asking that there be limits placed on law to prevent this kind of request being made of ANY company.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
