I Couldn't Agree More

In order for there to be the free flow of information, especially among the citizenry, there must be some wiggle room for people to exchange with each other without fear of reprisals, even if such exchange skirts established legality. The power of the state, and the potential for abuse of that power, weighs heavier than the potential harm such extended freedom of action would provide in a general sense.

And, as Mr. Scott so ably points out, in most instances of governments collecting information in order to protect us, not having enough sources of information is seldom the problem. It is, rather, that they most often have far more information than they can reasonably process now; especially as it requires proper integration with other sources, and those sources cross institutional jurisdiction boundaries; which may, in fact, be the much greater problem at the get go, than access to more encrypted messages.

Why Giving Governments Encryption Backdoors Is A No Good, Very Bad Idea