I think this comes down to the difference between banning things that nobody really wants (lead in paint) versus things that people really want (drugs, alcohol). In America, guns are in the second category.
Politicians think encryption is in the first category.
Edit: given how this discussion is going, I think we're back to the idea that encryption should be classified as a weapon in the US and subject to second amendment protection, as the 2nd is much more strongly defended than the 4th or 5th or even the 1st. (This argument obviously doesn't make any sense in the UK, where we should lean on article 1 and 6 ECHR). A country where you can have an AR-15 but not AES-CBC makes no sense, but we have to work with the politics as they are.
> Politicians think encryption is in the first category.
Not necessarily; I don't think they're quite stupid enough to think that encryption is not needed. (Perhaps once upon a time that was the case, when encryption was a munition regulated by ITAR.)
Rather, politicians are under the impression that it is, or should be, possible to have encryption that protects against anyone except their own government, that that's something they should get to ask for in the first place, and that that's just as good as un-broken encryption. None of those things are true, but good luck telling a politician that something necessarily needs to be beyond their control in order to function correctly.
The first amendment is actually far more strongly defended than the second. It's settled law at this point that exceptions to the first amendment must pass strict scrutiny, which means that there must be a compelling government interest in play, the restriction must be narrowly tailored to protect just that interest, and the restriction must be the least restrictive way possible to protect that interest. In practice, few laws pass strict scrutiny. In contrast, courts are still hashing out which level of scrutiny must be used when deciding second amendment cases.
> This -- until people realise that their online banking is not secure without encryption.
For some time, only online banking was allowed to use strong encryption on the web. There was a special kind of certificate, which could be issued only to financial organizations, which told browsers they were allowed to use strong cipher suites.
(It's my experience that people are more worried about their money than their dick pics.)
For one thing, most people have at least some money, while the desire to photograph one's genitals (and especially, after having done so, to keep the results private) is relatively rare.
Politicians think encryption is in the first category.
Edit: given how this discussion is going, I think we're back to the idea that encryption should be classified as a weapon in the US and subject to second amendment protection, as the 2nd is much more strongly defended than the 4th or 5th or even the 1st. (This argument obviously doesn't make any sense in the UK, where we should lean on article 1 and 6 ECHR). A country where you can have an AR-15 but not AES-CBC makes no sense, but we have to work with the politics as they are.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2044529/decryption-orders-cou...