> I think that when they look at this rationally they believe are better served by being able to access these conversations.
I don't doubt that FBI believe that total surveillance and complete control over every move that their citizen do is useful to data mine. However, the article question such logic because of the social impact that total surveillance has on society, criminals and innocents.
And this article is not alone on that aspect. The Swedish secret police had similar objections when the military suggested introducing such surveillance in Sweden. Their primary objection was that ubiquitous surveillance pushed criminals and innocents alike to darknets and encryption, which would then make their job harder (through, after they got a slice of the surveillance pie, they have now become very silent on the subject). I guess the police would have similar objection, however they are also getting a slice soon.
In the mean time, we can actually see in real-time the effects on society, like hot-lines being called less, people avoiding calling priest/lawyer and so on. Germany has some direct statistics since they introduced the surveillance several years before Sweden. I guess we will have to wait for hot-lines being added to tor hidden services before people feel comfortable again with talking with a stranger about suspected child abuses or domestic abuse. Criminals will as suggested move to more encrypted routes. Botnet distributors can get an increased slice in facilitating secure communication, and the military, secret police, and to a degree, the regular police can catch those too slow to follow the technology change.
Is this a dumb, evil, or just incompetent change to society?