Sen. Cotton Critical Of Apple's Cook On Encryption

(RTTNews) - Responding to Apple CEO Tim Cook's appearance on CBS' "60 Minutes," Senator Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has accused the businessman of omitting critical facts about data encryption.

Cotton argued that Cook's claim that Apple cannot access encrypted data on user's phones in response to a subpoena is only true because of the way the company designed its messaging service.

"As a society, we don't allow phone companies to design their systems to avoid lawful, court-ordered searches," Cotton said in a statement on Monday.

He added, "If we apply a different legal standard to companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook, we can expect them to become the preferred messaging services of child pornographers, drug traffickers, and terrorists alike--which neither these companies nor law enforcement want."

Law enforcement officials have suggested tech companies should stop offering end-to-end encryption in order to access data in response to a court order.

However, Cook argued that installing a backdoor to allow government access would create vulnerabilities that could be exploited by the "bad guys."