Don't forget the communists, the OG once-and-future scapegoats.

The fearmongering list has also been expanded to Russia and the far-right. As the list of perceived threats grows more varied, so does bipartisan support for undermining encryption.

With communists, especially in the 50s you would have been arguably justified in being extremely sceptical of them in power. Not to the extents of McCarthy but keep in mind that around that time the KGB were really flexing their muscles.

In the UK, the soviets were almost totally successful largely because the British establishment could not believe that someone who came from the right place and went to the right place could really be a communist spy. Even after, with or without hindsight, it was obvious Kim Philby was almost exonerated and re-entered MI6 to an extent purely because the people above him decided it was simultaneously too damaging and unlikely for a Cambridge man to be a communist.

Of course everyone wants those bad people stopped. But every law that claims to be "to stop the bad people and save the children" end up not actually getting used to that end, but instead to further harm the people. They all have far more collateral damage.

I used to investigate computer crime. You know what would have made my job really easy? Unlimited access to all computers worldwide.

Luckily I had to learn alternative investigative methods because we value privacy more than we value catching criminals, which is a good thing. I'd rather a criminal go free once in a while than a complete loss of privacy.

> Unlimited access to all computers worldwide.

Isn't that more-or-less what the NSA have already?

What I mean is, Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA already have most criminals' dirty laundry. The only thing keeping the law from rolling 'em up wholesale is the Overton window around parallel construction.