Social and political problems are rarely fixed with engineering solutions.

This. They can help mitigate the damage, and be a force for change, but - to paraphrase Schneier - these systems are robust legally, technically and politically - we need to fight on all fronts to defeat them, and just winning once won't do it, we have to keep fighting back against abusive laws, systems and politicians because they will keep trying until they get whatever they want, at every stage.

We can't magic rogue institutions, politicians and laws away with maths. But it can have an impact on the practical damage they can do.

Well, they are rarely fixed by engineering solutions that just try to hide the activity / behavior from view, and ignore the fact that it's a social/political problem.

I can easily come up with 'engineering solutions' to solve social / political problems, but it's usually paired with some sort of social/political action (e.g. engineering cheap weapons to supply a violent revolution).

2014, maybe its about time. You just have to define your problem set correctly, and work with reality rather than an idealised version of it(goes especially for historical precedences). we are lazy, selfish - egocentric, opportunistic animals .. with some natural variations into - what could be considered extremes (altruism / full blown "sociapathism" as an example). Designing public institutions means designing systems those institutions will run on - means getting rid of the non-existent ideals we like to assign to our selves as a species and start working with the sorry-state reality of homo-sapiens-sapiens - hence, engineering challenge ( like designing machinery for a self-managed pig-farm - and yes I chose pigs as an example on purpose )

I disagree. Modern day encryption has smashed a hole in massive social/political issues.

I would go the other way, engineering solutions (i.e Technology) dictate social and political problems.