Video: John Oliver comically summarizes the Apple/FBI iPhone encryption backdoor debate, featuring mock Apple ad [NSFW]

The Apple/FBI iPhone encryption backdoor debate continues to ramp up, with an FBI filing late last week causing Apple SVP Bruce Sewell to describe the case as a smear campaign against the company. Apple and the FBI take the battle to the courts officially on March 22nd, the day after Apple’s spring media event.

Although the topic at hand is clearly important, where the government is asking Apple to make software to undermine the security of iPhones, the bureaucracy of court proceedings can make the (continuing) story pretty stale and laborious. In a Last Week Tonight segment, comedian Jon Oliver humorously presents the opposing arguments without losing the underlying factual basis.

Watch the video after the break …

Oliver finds some hilarious quotes from government officials and FBI to intersperse between the show, including Donald Trump’s fantastic ‘iPhone boycott’ quote and District Attorney Daniel Conley’s example of something American’s once thought impossible: ‘Kennedy said we cannot go to the moon. We are going to get there in the next decade’.

In return, Oliver quips by citing Matt Blaze, computer scientist: ‘When I hear the if we can put a man on the moon we can do this, I’m hearing an analogy almost as if we are saying if we can put a man on the moon, well surely we can put a man on the Sun’.

Throughout the segment, Oliver raises news stories that we have been extensively covered in the past including the example that Manhattan attorney has 175 locked iPhones in the wings, Tim Cook saying that the tool is the software equivalent of cancer, and many clips from the recent congressional hearing on encryption. The segment concludes with a mock Apple ad, which portrays some succinct arguments that — although Oliver sides with the company on encryption overall — Apple is not entirely innocent on this case.

Court proceedings officially commence on March 22nd, where Apple and FBI lawyers will meet in court to discuss the specifics of the San Bernardino iPhone case in front of a judge. Whatever the ruled outcome, the decision is likely to be appealed with a strong likelihood the case will eventually escalate to the Supreme Court.