[berkes]

Ironically, most of these same sectors in the same governments have strong need to be protected from spying themselves.

So in many cases it's really a case of "we want a monopoly on secrecy".

Which should be a massive red flag for everyone, from left to right, from liberal to conservative, from anarchist to communist and so on. But somehow isn't picked up by any of these. I presume because they all believe somehow they either won't be targeted or will be exempt?

[pc86]

Several of those ideologies you mention are just different flavors of authoritarianism, and one of an ideological authoritarian's primary goals is power. Hell, take out "anarchist" and you could make a convincing argument they're all authoritarians in their own way. You don't get power by giving the populace - or helping them to keep - a free, secure Internet. It's just completely antithetical to someone who wants to hold power by nondemocratic means.

[berkes]

That was deliberate: a way of saying "probably even those who align with authoritarianism won't like governments to have a monopoly on secrets".

[perlgeek]

I don't see government monopolies as immediate red flags.

In most nations it's widely accept that the state has a monopoly on violence (usually through the police force), and it's not clear to me what a good alternative to that would be.

I also want my government to have a monopoly on taxation, I don't want any private company or gang to be able to just collect taxes from me, without any repercussion.

As for secrets? We probably have to distinguish a bit between secrets/data at rest vs. secrets/data in transit. I could well imagine that a good balance between security and privacy could require some tradeoffs when it comes to data in transit.

[berkes]

Good point. And while I too accept a state to have a monopoly on things, especially those you mention, secrets aren't those.

Because we all have them, need them, and because a society cannot function without them - there are many books and papers written about the "nothing to hide fallacy". We all really need some privacy. How much, is a different question, though. So in this discussion: maybe we don't need the level of "TOR by default for everyone", IDK.