It's interesting to analyze your comment for a minute. Consider that PRISM was revealed in 2013. It is a far reaching surveillance program carried out by the NSA with the assistance of numerous major tech players, including Apple. [1] It's unveiling was certainly an embarassment both for the companies involved as well as the NSA. And here we are in 2017, just 4 years later, with you stating that users can "trust" companies, including Apple by name, to implicitly protect their data from government overreach.
Essentially, that the government is publicly running a campaign to openly access user data does not in any way change the fact that they already have covert access to that data in private. Why are they doing this? One can only speculate, but I'd imagine one reason is that unlawfully obtained information and evidence is not admissible in court leading to all sorts of fun things like parallel construction. [2]
That does not make much sense. US companies have always needed to hand over information when presented with a warrant from LE or the FBI, I don't think that was ever denied by a US company.
In Apple's case, this would be any iCloud data which they can access and is not encrypted (such as contacts or calendar entries). However, the OP was referring to something completely different: Government attempts to force Apple to weaken data-at-rest encryption on everyone's devices.
It is fine if you believe that sealed/secret warrants are problematic, but it seems strange to equate that with the weakening of security for all.
It seems you're conflating a couple of our surveillance programs. PRISM operates in coordination and active cooperation with a relatively small number of US companies, including Apple. There is a rubber stamp warrant, of our secret court approves over 99%. The type and amount of information accessed here is extensive and includes encrypted and personal information - as well as even real time access to user accounts. You can see the NSA slides on PRISM here: https://archive.org/details/NSA-PRISM-Slides As an example of this, the NSA has real-time access to encrypted Skype conversations: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/inside-the-nsa-s... The breadth of information being collected was increasing quite rapidly, and everything I'm basing this this one is from 3-4 years ago.
Another surveillance program, that you seem to be conflating with PRISM, is MUSCULAR. That program is not as well known as PRISM. And it does what you're suggesting in directly tapping communication lines grabbing data from everywhere and archiving everything. Naturally anything that was sent on those lines unencrypted (or is otherwise able to be exploited) is then openly available. One significant difference from PRISM is that this is done without even a rubber stamping of warrants. Your post seemed to be describing the less 'cooperative' capacities of MUSCULAR with the token oversight of PRISM.
The problem that I see here is that most people are incredibly poorly informed on our surveillance programs, which include extensive domestic surveillance. And that is a shame, because in order for there to be progressive change people need to understand the current state of the situation. It's like discussing a budget when you think you have a billion dollars in the bank, but in reality you're already in the red - the sense of urgency, which should be there, has been artificially removed.
Essentially, that the government is publicly running a campaign to openly access user data does not in any way change the fact that they already have covert access to that data in private. Why are they doing this? One can only speculate, but I'd imagine one reason is that unlawfully obtained information and evidence is not admissible in court leading to all sorts of fun things like parallel construction. [2]
[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction