In the San Bernardino court case where the U.S. government seeks to force the Apple company to surrender proprietary property and possibly create an unsafe product, the Constitution is squarely on the side of the company and the people who use its products.
We need to look carefully at what the Constitution says. We can restrict our research to those few years — May 1787 to December 1791 — which I call the “Polity Period of American History.” During these years the founders created the Constitution (narrow polity) for the nation (broad polity) they envisioned.
The Founding Fathers were careful users of logic and language. In the preamble to the Constitution, they set forth the broad purpose of establishing Justice and insuring domestic Tranquility. Then they “provide for the common defense” before promoting the general Welfare and securing the blessings of Liberty. Notice that the framers did not capitalize “defense” as they did the other four broad principles of society the Constitution would “ordain and establish.”
Thus, we can infer with a high degree of certainty how the Constitution applies to the San Bernardino iPhone case.
National security (defense) is operative in the service of Justice and Tranquility. A finding for the government would erode Justice (the “great cement of society,” according to Alexander Hamilton, and roil Tranquility for convenience of prosecution in the name of national security that would subvert the very worthy national protections the government ultimately seeks.
Paul M. Craig
Northampton