this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
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Privacy
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This view might be controversial but here goes. If someone is suspected of a major crime (rape, serious assault, murder, major theft), maybe it's okay for law enforcement to gain access to that person's online accounts.
People might say "but if the government has the power to do that, one day they could do it to you, or they could use those powers to oppress anybody who criticises the government". But isn't that like saying "if you build prisons then one day an authoritarian government might put any critic of the government in those prisons"?
I don't disagree in concept but the problem is governments already are the bad guys. We know the US has contracted with another government to torture citizens of third countries. We know the UK is going to charge Greta with terrorism charges because she held up a sign in an annoying way. We know Germany has lost the fight vs Nazis, again. The bad part is already here.
In proton's case it's more insulting because their whole marketing schtick is fake privacy. Private email but only if everyone you know is on the same service and even the only the body of the email is private. Private vpn even though vpns don't do much for privacy unless the privacy you want is your isp to not know you're torrenting tentacle porn. They've added some other things lately that seem actually private but they were so late to the game it hardly matters.
It should be at the companies discretion. Convince a company, that can be held liable, that you actually got something worth breaking the rules for.