State your position on whether American companies should assist foreign governments in obtaining certain customers' information and data.

Consider the following points:

1. The U.S. government has no right to force anybody to provide services against their will. Consider the broader implications of the FBI's argument. FBI officials maintained that the U.S. government has the right to force companies to take actions that will help it to obtain people's personal information. Apple was not hiding anything and would have had to create new software to do what the FBI wanted.

2. This request came from our government. What if it was the Chinese government that wanted Apple to unlock the phones of Chinese citizens accused of breaking the law? Would Americans - and the American FBI - support attempts by foreign governments to force Apple to break into people's phones?

3. If the court case had gone forward and the FBI had won, it would have set a new standard for requests of this scope. It would have allowed any foreign government to force American companies to help in their investigations. The U.S. government would not have been able to stop this from happening, a situation that certainly would not be in America's best interests.

4. I have seen arguments that Apple refused to unlock the phone for business reasons, to protect the value of its brand. If this is true, should the U.S. government be able to force companies to engage in activities that damage the value of their own brands?