[dcminter]

> It's either A) we The People are completely free and nobody can intervene in any way or B) The Government is a tyrannical overlord that controls every packet that dares to enter the internet.

Do you mean the various efforts to weaken crypto stuff? I don't think I object in principle to law enforcement having access to the information for law enforcement purposes, but we know that any kind of access is subject to scope creep particularly when you lower the threshold for that access. First it's to enforce reasonable laws, then it's to enforce unreasonable laws, then it's because someone bribed a policeman. Not necessarily in that order.

Besides, the main problem with safety on the internet is not that law enforcement has no tools, it's that the crimes cross political borders. You can (in principle) identify the culprit in Russia easily enough when the money is laundered, but how exactly do you plan to bring them to justice?

[immibis]

Where I live, the police have raided people's homes for protesting things Israel did. And when I was a victim of an actual violent crime, they kept saying how they should arrest me - according to demographic profiling, I was the perpetrator (I was there, I wasn't), all the way up to the courtroom where the actual perpetrator barely avoided prison time. So no, I don't really trust them to access my private anything. Any society with a hope of stability obviously needs some way to enforce laws, but this isn't it.

[dcminter]

You and I vehemently agree.

But even if the police where you live were perfect, handing them the keys to the internet wouldn't resolve crimes committed outside their jurisdiction.

I see why the idea is appealing to politicians, but even they ought to think twice about the risks inherent in third parties accessing their most private communications - given that whatever sides of the political aisles they sit upon they are likely to be much more interesting targets to better resourced assailants than us average schmucks.

[whatnow37373]

The analogy is not perfect, but physically the police already has extreme powers and they can (and ocassionally are) abused, but that's the price you pay for protection. If we don't, we accept bad guys will be running all over us for eternity and everybody and their mothers has to have, at minimum, a couple of AK-47s for basic safety.