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

[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.

The relevant part of the First Amendment here prohibits the making of any law, quote, "abridging the freedom of speech." And it's pretty well-established that speech comes in many forms.

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.

Under [Tim] Cook, Apple has a new product line with the Apple Watch, but it hasn't generated the kind of excitement that the iPod, iPhone or iPad did. Still, Cook can't be called a failure. Under his leadership, the company released a larger version of the iPhone to record sales.

The FBI wants Apple to write software code to help it break into the iPhone. Apple doesn't want to say this. Andrew Crocker, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, a digital civil rights group, says the government can't make you say what you don't believe. He looks to a Supreme Court case that began in New Hampshire.

The Washington Post speaking out against state legislation that he believed would let businesses deny services to gay, lesbian and transgender people. [Tim] Cook himself came out as gay in the pages of Bloomberg Businessweek.