euthrow439

I suspect you overestimate the bespoke firmware-altering abilities of the average local criminal gang.

Well, one way: If you do make it illegal:

1. Police finds e.g. a 19 year criminal gang member doing something mildly illegal.

2. Police inspects their phone

3. Police finds illicit encrypted chat app

4. Criminal gang member refuses to cough up password

5. Criminal gang member gets sentenced and cannot hurt the public while they are contained.

Well, half of the EU has already backed itself into a corner.

Well, no, you're wrong. The terrorists are horrible, of course, but they don't really cause that much of a risk to the everyday person.

In my country there's a rapidly growing organized crime scene built around the distribution of narcotics. They are organizing themselves via these apps using burner phones. They are exploding bombs in multi-home buildings to scare/take out the competition on a weekly basis. And its all accellerating at a very scary rate.

School-age kids are using what sales people love to refer to as "military grade encryption" to communicate about hits/murders.

I'm in my early 40s. Up until I was ~35 I was very strongly against this, sort of like most you.

Now I feel the EU in general (some member states a lot worse than others) has backed itself into a corner because of the utterly failed integration efforts, union-wide. I live in a EU nation that has seen a very high rise in violent (and sometimes frankly horrible) crime over the past decade. As a dad of a 1-year old daughter I unfortunately find my self welcoming this proposal. The criminals are doing laps around the police because of these apps. :/