"Chilling effect" has always been a profound term for me, because I imagine the "cold" (numbness really) sensation a human body often senses when something truly awful (disembowlment/dismemberment) occurs. The body's way of protecting itself is to go "cold", and in many ways that's exactly the effect taking place here, as well.
There's also an undeniable part of this conversation that rarely gets addressed simultaneously, and I'd like to see it sussed out more in concert; what about the folks who are doing Evil in these private channels? It's unacceptable to me that TOR gets used for child pornography, and it's unacceptable to me that my government finds out I'm gay before I come out to my family.
I don't want to provide those who would do Evil any safety or quarter. I also want to give people a powerful shield to protect themselves against judgement and persecution from the public and sometimes the law.
We should talk about achieving both of these goals, but we generally don't.
Evil is agnostic of location. Your question is of no significance. You might as well be perturbed over "Evil" people living in houses or eating food. Unsurprisingly, evil people are people and will tend towards the same activities people generally engage in.
We need to talk about how to create "no Evil/privacy", or at least how to approach something of that kind, even if an absolute version doesn't exist.
If that was an available option, it would be fine. I'd choose no evil and no privacy because I'd know that my information, and more importantly the information of public officials and company leaders; folks who wield power; wouldn't be abused.
But that's not an option that's on the table, and whatever it is they intend to pick it is not what people accomplish when they endorse surveillance. Our governments do some pretty evil stuff and those are the people who end up with the power in these sorts of arrangements. What people are being given the choice between is 'a dubious promise of safety; an evil that doesn't offend them personally; and no privacy' - or 'a perceived higher rate of evil that does offend them personally; you're under threat, they're coming for your kids, hate freedom etc; and privacy.'
You seem to be taking the no evil part of things as essentially solved. But it's not. We do not have systems we can trust not to abuse this.
This isn't a conversation about absolutes, it's a conversation about shifting degrees. I'd like to shift towards the "less Evil/more privacy", but no one here or anywhere wants to try to come up with ways to do that, because everyone just assumes privacy gives Evil room to grow.
I considered it, but I didn't grant it since it was not clear that it applied - nor for like discussions would it be clear in the future. You adopted an extreme position which is not analogous to the discussion you wished to have, and that is not an act of rhetoric; discussion as an art and a skill. It is simply poor communication - as evidenced by how widely your claims would imply you to be misunderstood.
Rhetorical license doesn't cover that. The charity of understanding others extend a speaker is not an unlimited effort.
> I'd like to shift towards the "less Evil/more privacy", but no one here or anywhere wants to try to come up with ways to do that, because everyone just assumes privacy gives Evil room to grow.
It does. You gave such an example yourself: TOR and child pornography. More widely speaking, it's possible to lessen the 'evil' in society through a great many means - better school, better welfare provision, stronger community links. More to the point many, even on this site, seem in favour of taking those steps: Strong encryption? Please. Better schools? Yes please. Better community organisations? Yeah. There are of course people who'd say no, but that does not change the fact that people in favour of them are easily found.
Many of the steps that could be taken in that regard seem orthogonal to the larger discussion at hand, (encryption security - as structured by reasonable context,) mind.