With news revolving around the NSA and its abilities to listen in on phone conversations, it makes one wonder: can Apple read my texts?

According to Apple, it can read your texts, but are choosing not to, unless the company is  notified of suspicious activity. The way that Apple describes its policy is that it does not have the access to your messages and information, similar to a key. They do not own a key to open your front door, but if linked with information, they can cut the lock to access what they need.

Before mass hysteria breaks out, take a breather. Apple’s iMessage was never designed to cut locks, and if it were to do this, it would have to re-engineer the whole system to do so.

But the question arises: can we not be trusted? Do we need to be threatened by agencies like the NSA to keep us on track to not send risky text messages? If you have nothing to hide, then why do people get upset when their privacy is on the line?

The way to look at it is, as long as you have nothing to hide, then what is the problem?

To counter-argue the questions raised earlier: yes, you can be trusted. As long as you are not sending out sensitive information that might land you in questionable troubles, then why be worried? Unless you are on America’s Most Wanted, Apple is not going to be concerned with your plans on Saturday night.

Most people get worked up about the idea of having agencies like the NSA or Apple having the ability to read their messages. People argue that it takes away their freedom of speech and that they are constantly being watched, like a child that got in trouble and cannot be trusted.

But the thing is, Apple is not going through and reading your messages at freewill. Imagine all the owners of an iPhone in the world. That is a lot of messages that are going in. Chances are Apple does not care about your texts on the general scale. The only time that Apple is going to read your messages is strictly when it is absolutely necessary.

Since iMessage is not supported to have those keys cut on a constant level, Apple does not have a reason to snoop through your things. It would require too much work to do so. Under only crucial circumstances will Apple hack into your messages to prevent a crime or an attack.

With that raised, would not you want Apple to have the right to prevent an event like 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing? The point is raised that if those events were planned out via text, they could intervene and take action and notify officials. I would rather be safe than be concerned if someone’s going to read the texts to my friends.

For a sense of safety, I think that Apple having the ability to read iMessages is a good thing. I say this for the reason that it is not something that I have to worry about.