If you ask the representatives of Apple, they will say they cannot due to end to end messaging. They will absolutely deny that there is any way throughout the Apple system that can lead them to looking at a message sent to and received by someone.
If you ask researchers and security experts who have been working on this topic, they will say the exact opposite. They say that there is a weakness in the key infrastructure and that Apple can change they key whenever they want to, enabling them to read our iMessages.
If Apple actually can or cannot do this is a bit unclear, but Apple said that the work these researches have done is just theoretical. If the NSA were to ask for survalience of a phone because of a crime, then they would surely go through the law before agreeing to hand over the messages.
My opinion on this matter is that when Apple was asked if they could look at people's messages, they probably answered in a general way. Meaning that they did not as a general rule look at iMessages sent back and forth. If they did it would be unacceptable and a huge privacy issue. I believe that the researchers that figured out there was a way for Apple to look at messages are correct. Apple, if need be through law because of a crime, can look at people's messages. I don't think Apple would use their ability to look at messages for any other reason though which is why they have denied that they are able.
A cryptography researcher and professor at Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute, Matthew Green, states in a tweet that the message in the end of this story was not to go against Apple, but to let Apple and other companies become aware that "they shouldn't oversell the security capabilities of their products, because someone will take it apart to check their work".
For more information on Apple and their privacy policies and seeing your messaging visit this link!
http://mashable.com/2013/10/17/apple-nsa-imessage/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link
I've been wondering about this the past couple of months and I think this is really interesting! I definitely agree with you that Apple has the ability to read people's messages, but because they choose not to do it, they say that they are not able to. I think what people don't realize is how much is at stake for big companies like Apple if they say that they are able to read the messages; we all know how people overreact when hearing things like that!
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