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By Tim Higgins, Bloomberg

Tim Cook has picked a fight with the U.S. government and Silicon Valley is joining his side.

From Google to Facebook, the industry’s biggest names rallied around Apple’s chief executive officer after he vowed to resist a court order demanding it help unlock the iPhone of a shooter in a terrorist attack. Cook described the request as an “unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers” and called for a public debate.

The escalation with the FBI, which has been pushing for access to mobile devices since Apple tightened its encryption in late...