Reply to post:

Actually, I think that the generally recognised phrase is "nothing to hide, nothing to fear". Puts a different emphasis on things, doesn't it.

They took away my wealth, so I need not fear theft

They took away my children, so I need not fear paedophiles

They took away my vote, so I need not fear political corruption

They have taken everything from me, so I have nothing left to fear

Yep, definitely puts a different emphasis on things :)

A population and its government must use every means possible to keep pushing back against those who would exploit, kill and abuse them. What is guaranteed is that if we stop doing that, or we completely prevent our law enforcement agencies doing it for us, then the criminals, burglars, terrorists, paedophiles and corrupt will pay heed. They will be rubbing their hands with glee. And they will, quicker than you can blink, be giving you real reason to be afraid.

"Stopping" pushing back against those who would do us harm, would require us to remove existing powers from law enforcement, not failing to give them more powers. They already have the ability to get a warrant to target surveillance, and to detain suspects. 50 years ago that was considered perfectly adequate, and targeted surveillance is still available and still capable of providing useful information, including the ability to catch all communications data over cellular or fixed telephony and internet connectivity, for a known suspect, and to install and operate means of overhearing communications. All the encrypted VoIP or chat apps in the world are unable to stop someone from using a microphone to record you talking, or a camera to record you typing on a keyboard.

So the issue would appear to be all that fuss about getting the warrant in the first place? It would definitely be a lot easier for law enforcement if everyone was always under surveillance. You could easily identify political dissidents paedophiles if you have 24/7 recordings of everything they ever do, and then disappear them lock them up for good. The problem I have is that a 24/7 surveillance state is, pretty much by definition, a totalitarian state.

So give the politicians a break. You're worrying about comparatively minor intrusions into your use of technology.

I'm worrying about the ongoing erosion of privacy in the name of "safety", when the demons I am being "protected" from are less dangerous than driving my car; cars hurt and kill more people each year in any country than terrorists and paedophiles put together.

They're worrying about preventing people like you being killed, maimed, abused or exploited by some properly nasty baddies who really couldn't give a flying fuck for your privacy.

They apparently aren't worrying about me being killed or maimed by cars though, even though it is orders of magnitude more likely. They apparently aren't worrying about me being abused or exploited by corporate entities that want my personal data for marketing purposes, and are willing to lie, cheat and steal to get that data.

And it's clearly getting harder for governments to do that job. No thanks to those companies that make heaps of money providing internet services and pushing profitable adverts to baddies and goodies alike. It'd be nice if they lent us all a hand.

You mean those companies that provide a huge amount of political funding in order to ensure that laws favour their side? Here's a good one; my government already takes my medical data (gathered by the NHS) and hands it over to "selected" 3rd parties that provide a product or service that may be relevant to my medical history, as part of the Care.Data initiative. I have to specifically opt out if I do not want that to happen. I am told that opting out might mean I miss vital, life-saving offers.

"Be advertised at or you might die from something preventable". How fucking awesome is that?

There is of course far more to law enforcement than trawling through internet traffic (though the prior warning potentially gained could presumably be life saving). But do you honestly think that a democratically elected politician with less than four months before an election would risk vote-losing adverse publicity unless they thought that the alternative was worse? Now that might be something to really worry about.

If you honestly think Cameroon's outburst is anything other than an ill judged, badly misunderstood appeal to fearmongering then I think you may be mistaken. He hasn't got a clue what the actual outcome of "banning cryptography" would be otherwise he would have kept his fool mouth shut, this is a knee jerk "because terrorist!" response hoping to get scared citizens to vote for him out of fear.

Did you know, a recent study shows 100% of terrorists use transport to get to the place where they subsequently kill innocent people? I am also reliably informed that transport is responsible for some deaths every year just on its own! I reckon, if we really want to deal a terrifying blow to terrorists and save the lives of innocent people, then we should ban transport as soon as possible. It will quite literally save thousands of lives every year.

The recent focus on terrorism is because it makes them (the government) look bad, not because it saves lives, otherwise we'd be spending all that legislatory time making the roads safer by eroding driver privacy forcing drivers to be under surveillance at all times while driving. All right-thinking citizens obviously support drivers being under surveillance at all times (while driving) because only criminals break road traffic regulations. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right? :)