It's note to self the tech show about being human I'm a new summer ody. The debate over whether

the government could or should get access to your phone is here and it's personal. Here's

Apple CEO Tim Cook. We built the iPhone for you, our customers. And we know that it is a

deeply personal device. For many of us, the iPhone is an extension of ourselves. We are at a

key milestone, even if the FBI finds a way to get into the San Bernardino shooters blocked iPhone

without forcing Apple to write new software. A close relationship is being negotiated. The

relationship between the tech companies and the government. The relationship between the people

who built that thing in your pocket, the one that has all your banking details and pictures of

your family's last vacation and the people who we think and hope can keep us safe. People on

the other side, people like Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.

criminals understand that this new operating system provides them with a cloak of secrecy and they are

ladies and gentlemen quite literally laughing at us. And guess who's in the middle of this

contentious negotiation? Yeah, you, you as consumer and citizen. This is about all of us. And

that's why some people who have nothing to do with tech or defense are weighing in. People like

this man. This is Russell Banks. And Russell, if you had to say what you were best known for, what would it be?

Well, it says a novelist. Russell Banks is the award-winning novelist who wrote a flixion and the

sweet hereafter. He's one of the country's most prestigious fiction writers. And he decided to add his

name to a letter written by the Penn American Center of which he is a member. The letter is to the

US government on behalf of Apple. And the whole list of literary luminaries have added their names to

authors like Gay to Lease and Jay McInerney. I wanted to know why Russell Banks felt the need to take a stand

publicly. I spoke to him just after Apple's date in court with the FBI was postponed and dozens of people were killed in Brussels.

This was unusual in that regard. It was not the typical kind of letter that Penn sends out to its membership. And so it

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