In iPhone fight, Obama opts for security over privacy

For years, President Obama has struggled to reconcile a civil libertarian's belief in personal privacy with a commander in chief's imperatives for the nation's security. This week, security won.

Asked about the president's backing of the FBI inquiry into San Bernardino, Obama's press secretary declared on Wednesday that "the FBI can count on the full support of the White House."

In a meeting with technology company executives in the Situation Room last spring, Obama pleaded with them to allow national security and law enforcement officials some access to private data, according to one participant in the room. In an interview last year with Re/Code, a technology website, Obama lamented being stuck, "smack-dab in the middle of these tensions."

For much of his presidency, Obama has been unwilling to become a champion for either side, even as technological advances in encryption made a clash between privacy and security inevitable.

After Edward J Snowden exposed some of the government's most secret surveillance programmes in 2013, the president expressed support for the protection of user data on iPhones and other devices. But he also acknowledged the "legitimate need" to penetrate encryption, especially during terror investigations.

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