>The government is demanding new powers: the power to search our communications

This is an embarrassingly bad opinion and it's embarrassing for HN that it's at the top of the thread.

The constitution does not require a rewrite to the fourth amendment every time some nerd comes up with a new widget.

The government has always had the right to conduct warranted searches of communications, whether that was opening mail, wiretapping phones, or just good old-fashioned eavesdropping.

Strong unadulterated crypto threatens to take that existing, longstanding power away from the government. The government is hardly going to give up without a fight.