I believe that in the end, people in desperation come up with all kinds of reasons to compromise their own values if it enables them to attack what they believe to be a great enough evil. I don't believe that all of these people are horrible and I don't believe they would all "report their neighbors to the KGB or Stasi" to be completely honest with you.
Recently, I came to realize that this is exactly what I dislike about the arguments, ironically, against encryption, as well as for increasingly draconian anti-money laundering laws. I think that everyone, even the law makers, do know deep down that what they are doing is a compromise of strongly held and long-cherished ordeals. But pushed up against a wall and with the easiest path to progress from their own PoV being lawmaking, lobbyists, government, etc. delude themselves into thinking that this time it's different. This time, the ends do justify the means. And then in 50 years or so, we can all go "haha, how naive of them; of COURSE they don't!" while we're busy writing the next cycle of similar mistakes... Yada yada, history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes, etc.
Recently, I came to realize that this is exactly what I dislike about the arguments, ironically, against encryption, as well as for increasingly draconian anti-money laundering laws. I think that everyone, even the law makers, do know deep down that what they are doing is a compromise of strongly held and long-cherished ordeals. But pushed up against a wall and with the easiest path to progress from their own PoV being lawmaking, lobbyists, government, etc. delude themselves into thinking that this time it's different. This time, the ends do justify the means. And then in 50 years or so, we can all go "haha, how naive of them; of COURSE they don't!" while we're busy writing the next cycle of similar mistakes... Yada yada, history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes, etc.