When technology and society outpace the law

A self-driving Lexus SUV owned by Google's parent company Alphabet struck a bus February 14 while it was testing on the streets of Mountain View, Calif. SAN FRANCISCO -- The FBI-Apple encryption battle is just the beginning of an important debate this country needs to have about what to do when U.S. innovation outpaces American law. The FBI's failure to get data it wanted from an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists -- despite significant help from Apple -- shows that time has arrived once again. As with the coming of the telephone, the car, the radio and TV, the spread of the mobile Internet has gotten ahead of case law. In this case, with hand-held smartphones now ubiquitous, a consumer technology has outstripped the ability of the government to complete an important terrorist investigation.