I see this as fundamentally un-American. To quote Benjamin Franklin
* Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.*
Additionally I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, of Pareto[0] and fundamental statistics. At this point we are scraping the bottom of the barrel for safety. We are in the safest time in world history. We are in one of the safest times in American history too^. Certainly in the last couple decades. Yet for some reason we are treating issues of safety as if they are worse than the 90's. And if we can make a statement that is only 99% secure then we're pretty much screwed. 1% of attacks/opponents/people being protected (whatever that measurement of "threats" means) is really low. If it's attacks, well give it a few minutes (that'd be consistent with previous back door implementations). If it's opponents, then really anyone we actually care about is going to happen access (there are far more than 100 countries with computers). If it's people being protected, well there are 350m Americans. That leaves 3m Americans vulnerable. Any of these cases are unacceptably low and I'd argue actually set us back.
The other thing is that even implementing mass surveillance wouldn't help us. In many ways it has more potential to harm us. Like many in the thread have said, it isn't just personal privacy at hand. Politicians, high profile business people, etc can easily be blackmailed. It doesn't even have to be some kink (as others have suggested). Just something like sending nudes to a partner or a charged joke that is taken out of context (how many of you have dark humor or use jokes to illustrate a point?). Nation States will definitely gain access to these backdoors. It's highly likely hackers will as well. Additionally everyone does have something to hide. Banking passwords, sensitive information, personal thoughts and feelings^^.
So we are going to give up a fair amount of liberty for a minute amount of security? (Possibly negative security!) This does not sound like a good deal for anyone involved. I don't think it even helps law enforcement. They already can't handle the information that they have. We've seen that with data they have, or could easily obtain, that things are obvious in post hoc (like someone on 4chan saying they are going to shoot up a school).
How does this help us as American people? That needs to be honestly answered. Otherwise all I see this as a ploy on fear and overreach. We used to fear Big Brother. I'm not sure why or how we have come to embrace him.
^ the issues at hand I do not believe would be solved in any way by monitoring because monitoring does not fix the root causes, which are clearly solvable.
^^ lack of being able to share these will only increase our problems.
* Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.*
Additionally I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, of Pareto[0] and fundamental statistics. At this point we are scraping the bottom of the barrel for safety. We are in the safest time in world history. We are in one of the safest times in American history too^. Certainly in the last couple decades. Yet for some reason we are treating issues of safety as if they are worse than the 90's. And if we can make a statement that is only 99% secure then we're pretty much screwed. 1% of attacks/opponents/people being protected (whatever that measurement of "threats" means) is really low. If it's attacks, well give it a few minutes (that'd be consistent with previous back door implementations). If it's opponents, then really anyone we actually care about is going to happen access (there are far more than 100 countries with computers). If it's people being protected, well there are 350m Americans. That leaves 3m Americans vulnerable. Any of these cases are unacceptably low and I'd argue actually set us back.
The other thing is that even implementing mass surveillance wouldn't help us. In many ways it has more potential to harm us. Like many in the thread have said, it isn't just personal privacy at hand. Politicians, high profile business people, etc can easily be blackmailed. It doesn't even have to be some kink (as others have suggested). Just something like sending nudes to a partner or a charged joke that is taken out of context (how many of you have dark humor or use jokes to illustrate a point?). Nation States will definitely gain access to these backdoors. It's highly likely hackers will as well. Additionally everyone does have something to hide. Banking passwords, sensitive information, personal thoughts and feelings^^.
So we are going to give up a fair amount of liberty for a minute amount of security? (Possibly negative security!) This does not sound like a good deal for anyone involved. I don't think it even helps law enforcement. They already can't handle the information that they have. We've seen that with data they have, or could easily obtain, that things are obvious in post hoc (like someone on 4chan saying they are going to shoot up a school).
How does this help us as American people? That needs to be honestly answered. Otherwise all I see this as a ploy on fear and overreach. We used to fear Big Brother. I'm not sure why or how we have come to embrace him.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
^ the issues at hand I do not believe would be solved in any way by monitoring because monitoring does not fix the root causes, which are clearly solvable.
^^ lack of being able to share these will only increase our problems.