Even under Apple founder Steve Jobs, the company did emphasize values. Remember the Think Different ad campaign that used pictures of the Dalai Lama, Amelia Earhart, Mahatma Gandhi? But Jobs focused on the integrity of Apple's products.

Looking back at Tim Cook's public appearances in the last few years makes the standoff with the government look almost inevitable.

Even under Apple founder Steve Jobs, the company did emphasize values. Remember the Think Different ad campaign that used pictures of the Dalai Lama, Amelia Earhart, Mahatma Gandhi? But Jobs focused on the integrity of Apple's products.

Tim Cook has not been afraid to confront the government on issues he considers morally important.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and software has been treated as a form of speech ever since. So if software code is speech, Apple says the First Amendment also means the government can't tell Apple what to say.

[Eric]Goldman [a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law] says back in the 1990s, courts began to confront the question of whether software code is a form of speech. Goldman says the answer to that question came in a case called Bernstein v. U.S. Department of Justice. Student Daniel Bernstein who created an encryption software called Snuffle. He wanted to put it on the Internet. The government tried to prevent him, using a law meant to stop the export of firearms and munitions. Goldman says the student argued his code was a form of speech.

Apple doesn't have to write code, which equals speech, when it doesn't agree with what the government wants to do. And it's not that the government can't make you do anything you don't want to do.