[Cryptography] propaganda on "hurdles for law enforcement"

[John Kelsey]

> On Jul 27, 2014, at 4:20 PM, grarpamp <grarpamp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Benjamin Kreuter <brk7bx at virginia.edu> wrote:
...
> HD was better and opened spectrum, so people didn't rise against buying
> new TV's, especially for smaller cheaper LED vs CRT. Health was better
> and cars rusty, so people didn't rise against new cars, especially for cheaper
> and more fuel economy. Gov't wins when they offer something people want.
> The sooner you entrench something they want... crypto protection
> from 'the spies'... the sooner gov't will have a very hard time taking it away.
> Crypto is like candy to a world of newspawn Snowden babies... hard to pull
> once given. 

Yeah, Clipper didn't catch on during the Clinton administration, and post-Snowden, I would expect it to be much less popular.  On the other hand, mass surveillance is one of those issues that gets a very strong consensus among the people at the top, regardless of their political party--even if the public as a whole doesn't like the idea of mass surveillance, if both big parties' leadership supports it, who are you going to vote for, to register your disagreement?  (See also: the drug war, bailouts for large financial companies, aggressive foreign policy, impunity for the well-connected, etc.)  

>> Here in the USA people are convinced that dangerous
>> criminals are lurking behind every corner

I don't think this is quite right.  Media focus on fear and outrage because they sell papers and draw eyeballs, and they're easy to do.  (Nothing's easier than drumming up outrage by example on the talking heads shows, which is why they do that when there's no other news.)  But people mostly don't live their lives like people scared to death of terrorists.  *Lots* of people fly in planes, travel overseas, go to big events like the Superbowl or the Boston Marathon, etc.  

There's probably good poll data on this somewhere....

--John