[BiggsHoson]

After this passes, imagine a perfect storm scenario where a widespread crisis--real, manufactured, or blown out of proportion and deemed an imminent threat by the powers that be--affords governments the cover to force everyone to stay at home and completely rely on the Internet in efforts to maintain some kind of sanity during "these challenging times".

Oh, wait...

From there, it is not hard to imagine that compliance with such government lockdowns could be deemed critical for "national security". Suddenly, decryption surveillance on large numbers of the population is done in response to a situation seemingly not even imagined (as far as we can tell) in the creation of this bill. They will not have to publicly ask for people to snitch on their neighbors--they will already know.

"But," some will say, "it is to keep us all safe." Replace a health crisis in the above scenario with...I don't know...maybe your desire to join a local protest over something.

When the LAED Act passes (I am pessimistically sure that "if" does not apply here) poetic justice would be for those "Republican" senators to be the first targets of state-sponsored hackers decimating the personal fortunes they have coincidentally amassed while holding office. To be honest, I am surprised that there is not a provision in the bill to somehow exempt Congress, just like there is with most other garbage legislation they say is best for us.