[nickff]

You could make the same argument about different subject areas in a newspaper; saying that the different editors are antagonistic towards each other, and have varying levels of competence. In the cases of both newspapers and governments, there is a similar oversight and management structure across the organization, as well as unity in source of funding.

Perhaps we should expect different parts of the government to act with varying motives, but similar competence.

I think the government organizations attempting to ensure backdoors in encryption are acting deceitfully, malevolently, and incompetently, with the stated motive of easing investigations. Thus, I think the privacy regulators will act deceitfully, malevolently, and incompetently, with the stated motive of protecting consumers.

[badRNG]

I think we'll need to agree to disagree about the government's organization then. A newspaper is a far more cohesive organization that exists to a single end and has a largely uniform consistency, regardless of the beliefs of individual editors.

> I think the government organizations attempting to ensure backdoors in encryption are acting deceitfully, malevolently, and incompetently, with the stated motive of easing investigations. Thus, I think the privacy regulators will act deceitfully, malevolently, and incompetently, with the stated motive of protecting consumers.

I just don't see any good reason to make this leap. Furthermore, I don't see the utility of arguing against consumer protections simply due to the perceived misbehavior of an intelligence agency. Europe passed the GDPR, and despite its many inadequacies, it has positively impacted the privacy of European citizens, and proves that some ground could be made by way of consumer protection.

Privacy regulations aren't so pie-in-the-sky that they aren't worth fighting for. That's simply an unreasonable concession in my view.

[nickff]

My view on privacy is simply that it's too important to trust to the government. If we care about what a web browser sends out, it's a problem that should be solved by the browser, not the government. You don't trust the government to ensure the privacy of your communications; you shouldn't trust them to ensure your privacy in any other respect.