Yes they are. And it works because we can't multiply, emotionally. I tend to avoid LessWrong links around here, but this one is appropriate: https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Shut_up_and_multiply.
My first comment alluded to the torture vs dust speck dilemma. Horsemen vs privacy is nowhere near as extreme (especially at the dust speck end), but it has the same structure. If lay people realised this, the horsemen would not convince anyone.
Actually, please stop there and think about this for a second.
Having zero crime depends extremely strongly on the precise definition of "crime". Much more so than other, non-zero levels of crime.
This is only a good thing if you are absolutely sure that the definition of what constitutes a crime right now is perfect and immutable.
Extreme positions are almost always a bad idea and I think this is one of those cases.
I'm adding to your point by saying that I don't consider "0% crime" as a desirable goal since crime is something defined by people and people are fallible, hence the definition is also fallible.
The problem is not in removing meaning from the word "crime". We all have an imprecise, handwavey meaning of the word in our minds when we use it. We usually mean something like "undesirable behaviour which benefits a single individual while harming others". The problem arises when you try to operationalize this loose notion into laws since this process frequently results in errors. Another way this can go sour is due to overreach by groups currently in power in an effort to stay in power, leading to loss of freedom (which is more applicable in this case).
In other words, some crime is actually people breaking the law because for good reason, like rebelling against an unjust, inefficient or overreaching law.
Therefore, it's better to strive for a low crime rate than a zero crime rate. This is also the conclusion you arrive at through the application of the Pareto principle.
I think everyone here is familiar with Pareto. Capturing 80% of criminals is easy. Catching the next 10% is harder than catching that first 80%. Catching that last 1% takes significant amounts of resources, way more than the previous 90%. So it just isn't economically viable to stop it all (exponential curve and we don't have infinite resources).
So I'm not sure that saying
> A number of horrible things will happen as a result of pervasive end to end encryption.
But I don't think it is necessarily wrong either. I think encryption enables it, but this sentence implies causation (which is the rhetoric of those that want to remove encryption: causation).
How I read the horsemen comment is that these topics are used as boogie men. Because what sane person wants that stuff to exist? OF COURSE we want 0%. How can you be against stopping child trafficking? (practically) No one is against that! These are also topics we care VERY much about. Because frankly we should do everything we can to stop child exploitation. But we know the goal is unobtainable and to get only a handful more than we currently get (which is almost all of them!) requires huge violations of privacy and significantly more resources to be allocated. The horsemen are being used to get us on board and make us not ask if these methods are meaningfully effective or ask what the costs are. It also says that anytime you hear officials talk about the horsemen that you should perk your ears up and start asking serious questions. How effective is this? Does it actually help? What are the costs? The Patriot Act is a good example. It is not clear that it meaningfully reduced terrorism in any way and yet we gave up a significant amount of privacy (I can quote founding fathers on this too).
So it boils down to "if giving up the privacy does not do an effective job at making any meaningful reduction in actual child trafficking <insert horseman>, why should we give that privacy up? There's clearly benefits to privacy. So is this issue really about child trafficking or is something else at play here and are they just feeding off my emotions?"