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Re:The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets by belorn on Tuesday March 10, 2015 @06:30AM (#9176961)
Unofficially, politicians has surrendered the "because terrorism" excuse for a while now, as they simply want access to everyones private information in order to see where the problem are going to be. Having the data helps plan and run successful elections, makes it easier to plan ahead, and gives them power over any department which doesn't has similar access.

Imagine being in a political party while private intelligence contractor give you access to all the emails from the other side. You can know where all the activists are at any moment, and what the internal conflicts are, and what areas is focused. What would be your reaction if phones suddenly started to get encrypted?

Re:The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets by prawn on Tuesday March 10, 2015 @08:27AM (#9177317)
I don't think they want that. They take this course because "this was preventable!" is very politically disruptive. None of them want to be the guy who voted against mandatory data retention only to play host to an attack on home soil months later. It's sad, but that's the reality.
Re:The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets by gohrt on Tuesday March 10, 2015 @12:08PM (#9178469)
The history of government spying, at least as far back as J Edgar Hoover, as been about spying on members of the opposition, not about ass-covering. ass-covering is just the current halfway-excuse.
Re:The CIA Campaign to Steal Apple's Secrets by cmdkeen on Tuesday March 10, 2015 @08:36AM (#9177349)
You effectively had that during the latter Hoover years with the FBI. That the headquarters is still named after him is an indictment of the US approach to political corruption.