Here's a few that they forgot to add to the list:<p>* The fact that all citizens aren't required to log all activity of any sort with the government so that government officials and scan the log files for patterns makes it harder for Feds to find "terrorist activity."<p>* The fact that some things require warrants makes it harder to find "terrorist activity."<p>* The lack of an all-knowing, all-seeing eye makes it harder to find "terrorist activity."<p>* Considering people as human beings rather than just numbers on a screen makes it harder to find "terrorist activity."<p>* The fact that all locks aren't required to register a master key / combination with the government so that any government official can bypass any lock at any time for any reason makes it harder to find "terrorist activity."<p>While we're at it:<p>* Government officials that break the laws and get little or no punishment reduces public confidence in the rule of law. This leads to citizens viewing the government as an antagonist which makes it harder to find "terrorist activity."<p>* The government spending copious amounts of money on the War on Drugs rather than repurposing said money to finding terrorists makes it harder to find "terrorist activity."
>In the name of homeland security, we can build more walls, erect more screening devices, interrogate more people, and make everybody suspicious of each other, but we should not do this at the cost of who we are as a nation of people who cherish privacy and freedom to travel, celebrate our diversity, and who are not afraid.<p>I feel the ending speaks more against it than for it. It's mentioned because it is a fact. It is a fact that strong encryption helps those who wish to communicate in secret for dubious purposes.<p>It's not a very pretty fact. Because it means if the average citizen does not wish to be spied on or wishes to have a secure line of communication - so must "the bad guys".<p>Unfortunately this isn't an easy problem to solve.
I don't see the problem here, there are other ways to hunt terrorists then parsing everyone's emails and phone calls.<p>Regardless of what terrorist do, most still have to act outside of the internet, and those who do terrorist activities solely on the internet are already using encryption. Also, the government still has access to tap phone calls and get copies of people's emails through the warrant process, the only thing the private sector is doing is making it harder for people to break the law, isnt this a good thing?