In the light of this news I'd expect further resistance to end-to-end encryption from law enforcement. Considering that one leading Presidential candidate currently enjoys strong support for a blanket ban on entry to the US by adherents to a particular religion, it doesn't seem so far fetched to imagine that use of secure communication by private individuals might come to be considered as probable cause to believe that a criminal conspiracy is taking place.
While that outcome would be pendant to an unknowable election result a year from now, it's hard to ignore the fact that encryption has become an equalizing factor for would-be terrorists, and that mass surveillance/metadata examination is not as effective as we'd hope (in this case it failed to throw up a red flag on international communication between the US and Saudi Arabia (where there's an elevated probability of religious extremism) at a time when the program was still in full swing, as far as we know and most people hadn't heard of Edward Snowden.
Internet firms ignore these political considerations at their peril, as any secure channel could conceivably become a nexus for terrorist communication, and retroactive discovery could bring severe legal or political consequences. I don't think it's the responsibility of the tech industry to help governments discover, monitor, or interrupt terrorism, but politically the tech industry is a soft target compared to, say, the arms manufacturing industry.
While that outcome would be pendant to an unknowable election result a year from now, it's hard to ignore the fact that encryption has become an equalizing factor for would-be terrorists, and that mass surveillance/metadata examination is not as effective as we'd hope (in this case it failed to throw up a red flag on international communication between the US and Saudi Arabia (where there's an elevated probability of religious extremism) at a time when the program was still in full swing, as far as we know and most people hadn't heard of Edward Snowden.
Internet firms ignore these political considerations at their peril, as any secure channel could conceivably become a nexus for terrorist communication, and retroactive discovery could bring severe legal or political consequences. I don't think it's the responsibility of the tech industry to help governments discover, monitor, or interrupt terrorism, but politically the tech industry is a soft target compared to, say, the arms manufacturing industry.