[csydas]

I'd like to echo this and add additional comments. The original post states that it should be career ending, but the truth is that while many government officials and Tech companies say they are interested in privacy, the ideas being presented about backdoors are basically incredibly desirable to the majority of government agencies and major tech businesses.

Even your average citizen understands encryption on the basic level and what the backdoor means. No, they don't understand the technical underpinnings of how it works, but they know it means privacy that cannot be bypassed, and many are willing to give up that privacy if it means getting what they want elsewhere. You can lob the scares of "are you sure you have nothing to hide?" to any proponent of encryption as much as you like, but in all honesty they've made the assessment already and have decided that it's worth the gamble. Proponents of encryption aren't the victims of some massive disinformation campaign, they're just making a really bad decision despite the available evidence, and it's turning out to be an overwhelmingly popular decision.