I find this "Large list of people, difficult to monitor all of them" trope is very like when a business suffers a cyber attack and says "Nation state, nothing we can do to stop it" trope.
The reality is often different, it seems increasingly so to me, that it's a convenient position to take when awkward questions you'd rather not honestly answer come up.
I'm old and cynical, but that GCHQ/ Police Intelligence Trope does come to the fore after major Terrorist incidents, and the whole "SOCIAL MEDIA" monitoring kicks in and breaking or access to encryption usually follows...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
