It seems everywhere he goes these days, Apple CEO Tim Cook is out there forcefully and publicly defending his company's decision to provide iPhone users with end-to-end text messaging and FaceTime encryption to protect against the constant threat of criminal hackers and foreign governments. The question is: when will other tech company leaders follow his lead?

If we're going to avoid having a horrible law banning encryption passed in the next year, more of the tech company giants' high-profile representatives – the Mark Zuckerbergs, Marissa Mayers and Eric Schmidts – need to use their platforms as the world's most well-known technology chiefs to make crystal clear how important encryption is to users everywhere.

US and UK officials have not let up on their months-long PR blitz villainizing encryption in an attempt to force tech companies to provide a surveillance backdoor into their products.