Never attribute incompetence to a professional politics body.

Those people are basically never acting on incompetence, or on competence for that matter. And stop trying to make excuses for people caught in malicious acts again and again.

Precisely. If your job is a legislator, competence (or ability to delegate it) is part of the job description and, if you believe in democracy, a moral imperative. Thus, incompetence IS malice in such cases.

There is such thing as wilful ignorance, as Aristotle condemned it millennia ago, and it is morally reprehensible.

I think in this case, those prosecuting the change are not incompetent, or more precisely those prosecuting the breaking of encryption behind the scenes are quite competent. They just believe they can keep a secret, which they can’t.

Those involved with CSAM et al are competent as well in their field, but don’t realize they are the pawn they are.

The politicians though, sure, incompetent. No politician in the United States has an engineering degree, for example. So they are stupid enough to follow what someone tells them. Stupidity and fear and wonderful in others if you have an agenda.