The premise of the argument -- having a dead child or a terrorist act "to point to" -- is flawed to begin with. Having real-time access to ALL COMMUNICATIONS i

The premise of the argument -- having a dead child or a terrorist act "to point to" -- is flawed to begin with. Having real-time access to ALL COMMUNICATIONS is hardly useful (it would take minutes/hours for the monitoring systems to find actionable data, if it finds it at all), and having it after the fact is useful but generally limited to discovery and cross-examination (which can be achieved regardless, as there are established legal procedures for it). The issue is trust -- whether tech companies provide unlimited access to all data (and the specifications for how that data is stored, and the staff available for on-call assistance, and [...]) or provide an XKeyscore-like interfaces that was built in-house (and the specifications for how to use it, and the staff available for on-call assistance, and [...]), it simply isn't worth the the risk to set the precedent. Publicly they cry wolf, but privately they're simply jealous of China's capability to wield their tech sector with such agility. The LEOs can't get in, there is very limited HUMINT and SIGINT, and that makes them nervous. "Going dark" is a reality today, and having to turn to the State Department or the DoJ bugs the hell out of them. Getting told "the pool's closed" offends them on a basic level. Frankly there is no argument they can make that could change my mind, especially given the economic risk of being labelled a patsy or a nark. Even if they let the US Government have free reign, such an advantage will soon become worthless as word spreads that they're a security risk and summarily ejected from the LEO's apparent target.