That said, even if this specific scenario isn't realistic, discussions about the problems with surveillance state don't have to be grounded in "what happens right now" because the information stored today is available to future regimes and the specific technology involved is continuously changing.
> But what about the people who don't support racism/xenophobia, read a mix of news sources, aren't male (and so don't match with crime profiling). Are you saying their argument for not needing strong encryption is valid?"
Not at all, and I'm surprised that's what you would conclude from my statement. Obviously not every crime ever has that specific profile. The point was that when you have tons and tons of information about everyone, that is all categorized and geotagged and searchable and machine-learnable, it's a LOT easier for a completely innocent person to become a suspect.
There's no way the CPS in the UK would take a "well he was probably in the general area based on his number-plate, and he reads the Toadygraph newspaper and is in the 52% who are for Brexit", even along with matching a general profile for criminals, and seek a prosecution on that basis. Not to mention it would be a huge miscarriage of justice to convict. And that the courts don't have time for arsing around with people who may have a tenuous link to an area where a crime may have been committed; we don't have time, seemingly, for the "certain" cases.
But what about the people who don't support racism/xenophobia, read a mix of news sources, aren't male (and so don't match with crime profiling). Are you saying their argument for not needing strong encryption is valid? That would seem to be a corollary of your hypothetical situation, you've cherry picked long-shot situations compounded together that would lead to a case laughed out of court - no motive, no evidence, no credible witnesses.
>Still think you have nothing to hide? //
Seems like ~99% of people reading that who weren't convinced before hand would say "yes".
Also, if they're savvy they know that the store where you went has your MAC address logged for customer tracking and corroborates your story (due to "privacy violation"), the car-park away from the scene on their number-plate cam shows you stayed in the area long after the alleged crime and so weren't fleeing, another shop has you on their instore tapes at the time the police say the crime was committed.
Now the Toadygraph has picked up your story and someone leaked that you wouldn't have been picked up if you weren't a reader; the Barclay brothers are threatening to pull their Tory party funding and so the PM is putting pressure on the presiding Chief of Police to make an example of the department responsible.
Lawyers are starting to contact you (they got your info because you left your friend list open on Facebook) and are offering to lodge a case for unlawful arrest for you and the compensation they're suggesting looks promising ...
Meanwhile people are wondering why the police didn't catch the perp; the police say it's because they don't have access to all the data they need due to public privacy concerns ...