Pardon the bluntless, but it seems like an a priori conclusion that only people taking pains to hide their data/communications should be targeted. That is not because the vast majority of those people are innocent (they are) but because that is the only group that contains a subset that poses a real & present threat.
So, that ignores your slippery slope argument about personal liberties, which are totally valid. How do you balance national security and personal liberty in this case? That's the million dollar question.
Please let me know if you question my reasoning. I'm purely looking at it as a 2x2 matrix of (highly encrypts personal data, does not ...) x (seeks to harm people/nation interests, does not ...)
So only the people hiding their tracks that seek to harm are the ones to worry about. Those that don't hide their tracks are a lot less likely to be operationally successful</euphemism>.
However, I assume that the 99.95% of people that highly encrypt personal do not seek to harm anyone, and are collateral damage here.
Constitutional tradeoffs happen all over. Fire in a crowded theater, felons rights to vote, personal rights to own certain weapons, etc. This is another one that needs to be decided very carefully. But I think both sides have very valid concerns.
