Could this iPhone debate be all for show?

I will admit up front that what you’re about to read is pure speculation. If you start sending me tin foil hats after reading this, I wouldn’t blame you.

But here goes:

The smartphone companies are under intense pressure to break into their own phones so the FBI can investigate terrorists.

“This has become the Wild West in technology,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. “Apple and Google are their own sheriffs. There are no rules.”

Vance practically called their patriotism into question for refusing to cooperate. But I’m thinking, why would you go public with this? Especially when by going public, you are telling every terrorist from here to Raqqa to buy an iPhone. Then it hit me. Maybe that’s the whole idea.

Remember what happened after Edward Snowden revealed how the government pretty much had the keys to the entire cell phone network? Bad guys stopped using cell phones, right? They all went to private encryption apps. They went dark.

But now here comes the FBI admitting publicly that it has utterly failed to hack the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooter because the iPhone is that secure. At the same time, here’s Apple saying we’re not going to help you. We’re protected by the constitution.

So a terrorist hears that and says, “What fools these Americans are. We’re gonna buy iPhones and once again use America’s own technology to bring down America.”

Except what the bad guys don’t know is that while Apple and the FBI are fighting publicly, privately it might be a different story &#8212 such that by some weird coincidence the undercover cops know exactly where to go. Just a thought.