Most people and companies don't use encryption to protect themselves against governments, even though it would not be that hard (one could use ProtonMail for company e-mails, Signal/Threema/Matrix for messaging, etc, but instead everybody seems to be using GMail and Slack/Teams). Being anonymous is actually hard.
So yeah, the only thing that "somehow" prevents the US government from spying on everybody is law, because they clearly have had the capability for a long time. And given the occasional whistleblower, it feels like it's not actually enough.
Actually I would even wonder if access to fairly-anonymous and private communication is not more important in non-democracies. Because in a functioning democracy you should be able to discuss matters more freely (at least to some extent).
Anyway that's probably off topic, and I didn't mean to say that governments should ban encryption (encryption does exist, bad actors will always be able to use it even if you ban it). But that does not mean that governments should not interfere with technology in general, I would say.
Yeah not sure, maybe I'm completely off topic here.
1. allow encrypted anonymous communication and the ability to use that to defend democracy
2. disallow encrypted anonymous communication and the ability to get away with sharing deepfake nudes
Both of these are bad, but one is clearly much worse than the other.
Anyone calling for steps as drastic as internet censorship to stop one comparatively minor issue are clearly unaware of the consequences of that road.
This is especially relevant given that every decentralized system is actually an illusion, a merely temporary state of transition from one centralized regime to the next.
I can't think of a single democracy where journalists, dissidents, and whistle blowers are not able to communicate and coordinate or even transact with others anonymously and privately when needed, thanks to decentralized tools like encrypted email, matrix, tor, bitcoin, etc.
In fact sometimes when a given state oversteps, like Texas on abortion, it is -critical- that people can communicate anonymously to preserve basic human rights that other states still recognize.
If that was ever restricted we are in for a world of pain.