> Wiretapping a chat if the citizen is suspected of a crime AND after a judge
> has reviewed the evidence and green-lit such surveillance is - imho - more
> acceptable. We do that with phones, why would we not do it with chats?
The problem is that it's not technologically possible. Many major messaging apps - including WhatsApp, which is the market leader by far in Europe - provide end-to-end encryption, and have done so for years. After a judge has ruled that an individual's WhatsApp chats are to be surveilled, how would you achieve this? In the current situation, there's just nothing you can do. You might try to wiretap the phone, but there's really not that many zero-days left: both iOS and Android are quite secure these days, so this isn't even an alternative.
The only way to make court-mandated surveillance possible is to ensure that nobody's chat is encrypted to begin with, such that after a court order has come in, the data can be easily read. So to outlaw end-to-end encryption entirely is what this proposal is really about: break privacy guarantees for everybody to enable surveillance in a few outlier cases.
Of course, once encryption has been broken, three-letter agencies the world over will be reading your chats whether they have a warrant or not.
There is no way to have private communication for good people only. Either you have freedom for all, or freedom for none.
The only way to make court-mandated surveillance possible is to ensure that nobody's chat is encrypted to begin with, such that after a court order has come in, the data can be easily read. So to outlaw end-to-end encryption entirely is what this proposal is really about: break privacy guarantees for everybody to enable surveillance in a few outlier cases.
Of course, once encryption has been broken, three-letter agencies the world over will be reading your chats whether they have a warrant or not.
There is no way to have private communication for good people only. Either you have freedom for all, or freedom for none.