The State of the Upheaval (SOTU) in cryptoland

Let's try to give a brief overview of the State of the Upheaval (SOTU) in the media regarding the storm over David Cameron's encryption offensive.

The Guardian quotes him as follows:
“In extremis, it has been possible to read someone’s letter, to listen to someone’s call, to listen in on mobile communications,” he said. “The question remains: are we going to allow a means of communications where it simply is not possible to do that? My answer to that question is: no, we must not.”

The ensuing arguments centered on the predictable issues of terrorism and "other" crime, on the technical sense and nonsense, on privacy expectations and on the so-called cryptowars of the 1990s.

We have cyberlibertarians on one side and concerned government leaders on the other, so why even talk about it when the lines are clear and the winners already established?

What winners?

The "no one should be above the law", of course. They may not get all they want, such as making use of TOR or other anonymization tools outright illegal.
But that's not the point for the moment. The point is to get at the various service providers' encryption keys.

It is sad to see how a non-issue becomes such a hotly debated subject.

Yes, a non-issue.

Because government officials can get pretty much any data they want. They may be stumped by some encrypted emails, by some OTR chats, or by and encrypted hard drive.
But it does not fundamentally change their ability.

What they really want is to extend their options and make collection easier, as cheaply as possible, with as few legal challenges as possible.

Look at the original statement again: read someone’s letter, to listen to someone’s call, to listen in on mobile communications.

None of these communications are older than about 200 years for the overwhelming majority of citizens. Up until about 200 years ago - give or take a century - the majority of citizens were illiterate - no letters for the government to read. Then came the telephone and "mobile phones".
Big difference: None of these technologies allowed to build a full picture of the user's life.

The statement "a means of communications" tells us all we need to know.

The quaint human activities of "reading a letter" or "listen to someone's call" are not what the initiative is about, it is about basically everything you do.
The encryption genie is out of the bottle, so, the logical industrial scale approach is to get at the keys.

Many call for "a discussion" but shy away from something truly comprehensive. Mr. Cameron's statement is so heavily loaded from the outset that the part "the question remains" is merely a rhetorical facade.

If "we should have a debate", why not start with some trust building measures for starters.

Say, the government sends an email or text notification to every citizen whenever private data of a citizen is collected or accessed.

If the little online shop selling pet food or vibrators can do it, why not the governments we elect and pay for?