My first impression when I read articles like this (and I'm sure many of you are thinking the same thing) is to come up with a distributed xmpp OTR/pgp blah blah. But the reality is that the law simply must work.
What kept the government from tapping your phone lines before? It's quite easy to do, after all. It's respect for the law and consequences for breaking it*
We can spitball distributed messages systems all day but we MUST demand laws that respect the constitution and accountability of public officials.
*theres also the cost factor, and I believe these distributed encryption systems add considerable cost.
I think the cost factor is the biggest reason. Previously you needed to dedicate actual people to listening in on conversations. You had a listening office with physical copper lines coming in and if you wanted to listen to a new line, you'd have to patch it in, which after a certain point means disconnecting a line you have less need for, because the patch panel only has so many connection points.
A secure, end-to-end encrypted system would surely do a lot to increase the cost. But a big problem is that it's still very tempting to just poison the well and weaken the crypto/plant backdoors in the build infrastructure/whatever because that kind of thing enables bulk collection again.
What kept the government from tapping your phone lines before? It's quite easy to do, after all. It's respect for the law and consequences for breaking it*
We can spitball distributed messages systems all day but we MUST demand laws that respect the constitution and accountability of public officials.
*theres also the cost factor, and I believe these distributed encryption systems add considerable cost.