It's framed as child protection precisely because it shuts down any debate on the matter. Everyone sees through the terrorists excuse but child exploitation causes such rage in the population they agree to anything the government says will make it stop. Discussion of any news related to this child abuse will pretty much always be full of people advocating for execution, torture and rape for the perpetrators. Encryption is nothing to these folks.

The reality is encryption regulation will be a tool for governors to secure their own power. They will abuse the insecurity to spy on political opposition, whistleblowers, journalists, protesters, even their own significant others. Child molesters are actually a low priority target for them, just a convenient enemy for the public to rally against. However, arguing against laws that are said to protect children is political suicide because they just label the opposition as pedophiles and enablers.

Children are the perfect political weapon. Any law can be justified by saying it's to protect children. They aren't even using terrorists as an excuse anymore.

> Everyone sees through the terrorists excuse but child exploitation causes such rage in the population

I agree, but this is what seems so interesting about the Epstein case. In the age of #MeToo, you would think this story would be getting 24x7 media coverage, especially with Prince Andrew's "interesting" interview the other day - a fairly big deal one would think, but I saw no mention of it on the first 3 pages of /r/all. Yet, there seems to be something about the story that severely psychologically disinterests people, and not just the average person, but relatively smart people as well.

That's because there is a deeper agenda than just "protecting children". If you read the Edward Snowden book (permanent record) then you'll note that he talks about what the NSA/CIA is actually doing with their signals intelligence programs. It isn't about national security, it is about espionage on a global scale. They want information on what foreign governments, journalists, domestic organizations (not just terrorist groups as they claim) and corporations are doing. For domestic citizens, they want to know if you are a threat to the United States or violating laws.

The second strong end-to-end encryption is implemented, the whole system simply fails to operate. Instead of having a massive data collection system, you now have to go back to more traditional methods that require much more effort to implement - like hacking a target's computer directly. If that happens then the USA will lose its edge in terms of obtaining critical information and that will be a treat to their global dominance....hence the reason they mention national security. Of course, you can't just come out and say this is the reason so they mask it in "fighting sexual exploitation" etc.

The truth is end-to-end encryption and fighting sexual exploitation are not mutually exclusive. We can have both.

>hence the reason they mention national security. Of course, you can't just come out and say this is the reason so they mask it in "fighting sexual exploitation"

And then all the intelligence employees come on HNews after 5 PM and bitch and moan about how we don't trust their agency's reports about its own conduct and activities...

> Instead of having a massive data collection system, you now have to go back to more traditional methods that require much more effort to implement - like hacking a target's computer directly.

Which is more amenable to accountability. Usually this requires a warrant or approval of some kind.

> If that happens then the USA will lose its edge in terms of obtaining critical information and that will be a treat to their global dominance

How does the US banning encryption help it on the global stage where other countries continue to encrypt their messages?

Because the US will pressure other countries to do the same thing. If enough countries agree then it'll be easier and easier to push it onto the rest.

This sounds like what CIA should be doing, right? It's like saying that military has an agenda to build more aircraft carriers and control all movements in the open waters.

The only thing I wonder about is whether this encryption crisis is just a lazy attempt to preserve the no longer working espionage methods or it's a smart conspiracy of evil people to break the humanity: convince people that there is a child or whatever problem and convince them to build the 24/7 monitoring system. This way people would build a prison for themselves.

It's not an argument, it's marketing.