>Kinda curious how "child abuse" a remit outside the scope of GCHQ ... I wouldn't be so sure. Their mandate includes combating organized crime. If it's a traff

>Kinda curious how "child abuse" a remit outside the scope of GCHQ ... I wouldn't be so sure. Their mandate includes combating organized crime. If it's a trafficking ring, there's your justification. >Not that I wouldn't love GCHQ to tackle child abuse ... Seconded. Add ransomware authors to that list. I recall hearing of NSA analysts who, upon incidentally encountering terrible things, would tip off relevant law enforcement. >... drug dealers and lots of crimes that the police seem unable or capable of dealing with to noticable effect. Cartels? Sure. Signals intelligence capability is already deployed against them anyways. Street dealers and random crimes? That's going too far. Of course, the crux of the debate is where do you draw the line. It admittedly gets fairly murky, and the existence of a line in the first place is worth questioning. I think in the future there will be more technological options to hopefully satisfy both sides of the debate. People unable to do horrible shit while otherwise retaining full privacy.