What do we do when the government attacks the market value of a company? What do we do when the government starts polarizing and leveraging public opinion against a private company?

The FBI made a public statement to the world about an ongoing investigation. When do they ever tell us anything about what they are doing? They won’t comment on the investigation into Hillary Clinton jeopardizing national secrets, but they will tell us they want Apple to unlock an iPhone.

They won’t tell us what Americans they are spying on or what they are doing with the data they collect. But they will tell us what they want in order to spin us against an icon.

I cannot speak to specifics, but I can speak about the observations I see. I see here how the FBI went out in public and put Apple on trial in the court of public opinion. A court without a judge, we’re the jury, and the verdict is always wrong.

Apple has said they will stand strong even up to the Supreme Court, as they should. However, no matter what the Supreme Court decides, Apple loses. Their stock value, sales, and public opinion about them is becoming polarized. Polarizing opinions creates extremists. This has no net positive for Apple.

Apple is in a lose, lose situation.

Believing this is only about unlocking one iPhone is to believe one grain of wheat makes a bushel.

The FBI and the government have made a very public statement with very far reaching implications. This is not the move of a neutral government protecting people and administering justice with a free market’s best interest at heart. This is the move of a mobster thug against a local shop owner who owe’s ‘protection money.’

As you now sit in the jury box of the world’s courtroom, how will you respond to the US Government’s actions against a tech giant of silicon valley?