Given that now we are all suspects in waiting, use of anything to protect privacy is going to be evidence of, well... something. Governments, for some weirdo reason, think that no one should have need for privacy, if they are decent lawful people. Despite individuals in government insisting on personal privacy for them selves.<p>What bothers me is that the more we use systems to protect our selves, the more governments will become paranoid because they may not be able to monitor us to reassure them selves that we are not up to no good. This could well make them react by telling the mass population that "terrorists" and "criminals", might as well bung "pedophiles" in there too, are communicating "securely". We will prove their paranoia, give them the evidence they can twist and use. It will become more and more twisted, with the whole thing artificially ratcheting up. This seems to be how governments do things these days.<p>However, perhaps the severe danger government face is that privacy may catch on. Imagine if people begin to default to the most secure methods they can get. Simple add-ons that enforce using HTTPS where available, browsers that block tracking, more secure email, and so on. Might not be robust and perfect, but the internet would see more and more traffic definable as "secure". As this goes on, these secure services will become faster, easier, and more secure, enabling more and more people to be easily secure. Worse still, the software would become independent and open sourced for verification. In the end, even the NSA should have difficulty keeping up and cracking the security. The more data that is encrypted, the more data they will feel they have to keep.<p>Dunno quite where I am going with this, but I reckon that by aggressively spying on mass population government is making their own job much harder in the long run. It could force the internet and communications in general to become secure beyond their capabilities to crack. Then all that is left is blackmailing people to give up keys with threats of prison, or worse.