Fear-mongering wins elections. It is a sound bite. "Senator Mark Warren thinks we should protect criminals who exploit children!!!!!" The general voter doesn't care about the rest of the details. People are afraid to be on the wrong side of it. If this doesn't pass, then even a single case is proof that we should have voted yes on EARN IT.

Why does "think of the children" work but "senators want to look into your bedroom" doesn't?

Because you can come up with all sorts of rebuttals from certain individuals, like "I don't care if they invade my privacy, they are welcome to look into my bedroom all they want, there is nothing interesting there". We already see a form of that reasoning from people regarding personal data tracking, saying stuff like "i have nothing to hide".

On the other hand, you cannot come up with a similar simplistic argument when someone brings up "think of the children" without giving out some really bad soundbites of yourself. You cannot just say "well, I don't care about children, it wouldn't affect them much anyway" without being represented as a heartless moron by the opposition.

Disclaimer: this is just all for the sake of the argument. I, personally, am very strongly against this "think of the children" bs tactic and am fully in favor of E2E encryption. It is just sad that the "think of the children" argument is so effective solely due to the emotional appeal and how difficult it is to fight against that argument without coming off in poor light.

Flip the script: "Senators want to look into your children's bedroom".

Weakening encryption endangers everyone, children included. I don't want my kids to be using digital products that can be backdoored by bad actors.

That move would be pretty high-risk/high-reward, but I would be for sure cheering if/when that happens.

Because senators don't want to look into your bedroom and it's obvious. We all know this. A story most people remark with gladness on is that Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in jail for tax evasion over $215k. AFAIK, there is no minimum amount above which you're eligible for the 5 years. In addition, most states have a sales tax evasion penalty (California can put you in jail for a year). Now, many Americans commit sales tax evasion all the time fairly purposefully when they buy online.

People love the fact that Al Capone was put away, but they don't want to be put away for their miserable $200 unreported either. They give the government the overarching power and then trust it to use it right.

That's what the Senators in your Bedroom argument misses. Everyone knows the senators don't want to look in your bedroom. Everyone knows that the senators want to look in the terrorists' bedroom. The only worry is that some rogue senator will look in your bedroom knowing you're innocent but Americans trust in the rule of law and believe that won't happen. The Senators are on your side. They're the good guys. The Child Pornographers are on the other side. They're the bad guys.

Now, I support E2E encryption. But it's obvious to me why this argument won't convince anyone. The real argument is more subtle and involves the erosion of civil liberties and the deleterious effect that will have on the American Republic. I think enough Americans generally understand this that they will protect it.

I think it is a combination of a) People think they have nothing to hide, and b) Nobody is running ads with the later.

It is a good question. My guess it is about perception. People don't really think the bad will happen so it is "free" to think of the children instead. Probably need someone more versed in human psychology to answer this.

Probably because that immediately becomes:

Senators want to look in your bedroom so they can see you fucking children.