Tim Cook: Encryption Is Not 'Privacy vs. National Security'

Apple CEO Tim Cook this week doubled down on encryption, arguing that the tradeoff is not "privacy versus national security."

"I think that's an overly simplistic view. We're America. We should have both," Cook told Charlie Rose in a 60 Minutes interview that aired on Sunday night.

"Here's the situation," Cook told Rose. "On your iPhone, there's likely health information, there's financial information. There are intimate conversations with your family, your co-workers. There's probably business secrets and you should have the ability to protect it. And the only way we know how to do that, is to encrypt it."

Encryption made headlines in the past year after Apple and Google decided to encrypt their mobile operating systems by default. That means communications on devices with newer versions of Android and iOS are inaccessible to Google and Apple, so they cannot turn over things like iMessage chats to the feds. The FBI says this hampers investigations, but in a post-Snowden era, major tech companies do not want it to look like they are in cahoots with the government.

"If the government lays a proper warrant on us today then we will give the specific information that is requested," Cook said. "Because we have to by law. In the case of encrypted communication, we don't have it to give. And so if like your iMessages are encrypted, we don't have access to those."

The issue cropped up again in the last month after it was revealed that the terrorists who attacked Paris communicated via an encrypted app.

Tech companies can add a backdoor to provide the government access, "but the reality is, if you put a backdoor in, that backdoor is for everybody, for good guys and bad guys," Cook said on Sunday.

Cook also talked taxes, arguing that it pays "more taxes in this country than anyone." But what about the money it makes abroad? Rose suggested that Apple is running "a sophisticated scheme" to dodge taxes on $74 billion in overseas revenue.

"That is total political crap," Cook said. "There is no truth behind it. Apple pays every tax dollar we owe."

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Rose also touched on Chinese manufacturing, which has, in the past, given rise to questions of low wages, long hours, and unsafe conditions.

Apple has since limited the work week to 60 hours, raised pay, and cracked down on child labor; still, 30 percent of global facilities building iDevices do not meet Cupertino's safety standards, 60 Minutes reported.

On a lighter note, the TV news magazine got a closer look at the iPhone camera, with its 12-megapixel advanced technology and 4K 3,840-by-2,160 video capabilities. The real impressive figure, though, is perhaps the 800-person team dedicated solely to the centimeter-wide component. That team is led by Graham Townsend, who recently took the 60 Mintues crew on a tour of the camera testing lab.

Catch the entire two-part interview—including conversations with Chief Design Officer Jony Ive, Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue, and Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores—via CBS News.