“Yes?”

“Good evening. I’m from the EU Commission, and I’m here to live in your house and passively participate in all your conversations. Don’t mind me - I’ve brought my own sleeping bag. Don’t worry about reporting your private interactions to the Proper Authorities. That’s my job.”

European governments clearly understand how crucial encryption is to preserve privacy and security. Yet, these crucial factors for their own communications seem to be something that citizens will have to make peace with and lose in the name of the common good.

It goes back to pre-HTTPS-times when encryption was deemed something that only governments are allowed to use. Add to that the “but what about the children” kneejerk aspect - and the fact that most people are still IT-illiterate enough that they do not understand this:

thinking of being able to create a backdoor into encryption that only authorities can access is naive and technically impossible. Once this entry point is there, everyone will be able to exploit it. Period.

So why do it? Corruption aka lobbyism? But who would have a interest to lobby for it? “War on terror”? The wish to truly control the pop? It all seems trite and outdated yet here we are.