It's disturbing that advocating against encryption may become the latest device for bolstering the perception of a candidate as being tough on crime or terrorism. The general public's poor grasp of encryption makes the political cost of the position small.
Never assume that the people attacking you are doing so because they are stupid. Some people may truly misunderstand encryption, it is extremely unlikely that Clinton, McCain, the the directors of several TLAs actually believe they can re-bottle the encryption genie.
Stopping encryption is obviously not the goal.
They may want to put a leash on the power that Silicon Valley has been gaining over the last few decades. Asking for something impossible is a good way to set someone up to fail, especially when the you can tie it to various recent tragedies with the usual emotion-driven rhetoric.
Maybe the goal is just to scare people away from encryption by associating it with terrorists or the fear of arrest for aiding-and-abetting[1].
What about banking and other business uses of encryption? Nobody ever said the government was internally consistent; selective enforcement is a powerful tool. I'm sure those uses will continue to be ignored.
