Re: That is quite some arrogance
1) In the physical realm the government has access to everything, the police can (with a warrant) go anywhere and search anything, there are some other official bodies like Customs and Excise who have even more powers. If we're happy that the legal system, acting through authorised police officers, is able to come to my house, break open my filing cabinet and read my diary, why aren't we happy for them to read my Whatsapp messages under similar circumstances?
It's the with a warrant bit that's relevant here. If the police were to break into your house and read your diary, you'd know about it. And if you had stuff in your diary that you felt it was important to keep secret, you'd take measures (like cyphering) or not writing it at all. Same with electronic communications. More to the point this makes it easier for a range of people to intrude on your private (or at least personal) business at minimal cost; with bugger-all oversight and ditto accountability.
Let's face it shutting down the dark web isn't going to happen...it's impossible. And calling it the dark web is just propaganda.
The government has tanks. If you're concerned that the goverment are out to get you, you're pretty fucked. The way to fix that is by being democratically involved and holding the government to account and by ensuring that the government's ability to snoop is transparent and accountable.
I don't think the government are out to get me, in particular. Your 'being democratically involved' plan is -in its way- as unrealistic as the government's hopes of being able to view everything that's happening on the net. The government's ability to snoop has never been transparent and accountable and never will be...the world just does not work that way. I don't have serious beef with a government...if I did, I wouldn't be having it on the internet; that's for sure. However, I do dispute the cheeky cunts thinking they can legislate themselves the right to hoover up everybody's private/personal biz. It's fuck all to do with catching terrorists and all about power. Worse; there will be scope creep; the powers will expand; the number of departments on the reading list will expand; and inevitably the records will be hacked; at which point your biz will become truly world-readable.
Giving digital communications a privileged status on a par with medical records or lawyer client confidentiality does not seem like the right way to do it.
You're straw-manning me a bit there. And medical records and lawyer-client communications are part of what the government wishes to monitor (and has already been caught doing, in the case of lawyer-client comms).