I see insightful comments from both sides of this issue, but what worries me is that most solutions seem to rely on technical solutions. I'm a technology-optimist and materialist at heart, but I don't think technological solutions are the best way to safeguard liberty. Even if they are, there's no reason that we should accept to live in an antagonistic relationship with the authorities. In liberal democracies, the authorities should be on our side, and legal safety nets should be in place to prevent them from straying too far from this if they're acting in bad faith.
(Purely) technological solutions to the problems in this thread remind me a bit of the American thinking that people need to own assault rifles to make sure the government doesn't overstep. Dude, even if you win, the world's become a very bad place if you find yourself in a shooting match with your government. How about instead reforming said government and instituting legal safeguards for your liberties?
All the legal safeguards in the world won't save you from a sufficiently high proportion of bad apples in centralized places of power.
This is a very real threat in today's world of mostly Administrative Law, legislative buffoonery, and a Supreme Court that shoves their fingers in their ears instead of dealing with clear misinterpretations of the Constitution.
(Purely) technological solutions to the problems in this thread remind me a bit of the American thinking that people need to own assault rifles to make sure the government doesn't overstep. Dude, even if you win, the world's become a very bad place if you find yourself in a shooting match with your government. How about instead reforming said government and instituting legal safeguards for your liberties?