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Why is communication being compared to physical access? E2EE protects my conversations from being "heard" by others. If I was walking at the park talking to my friend, the government wouldn't complain that there's not a microphone nearby. Nobody else is physically able to listen to that conversation, and that's perfectly common and acceptable.

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I know it's cliche to bring up 1984 in these kind of talks, but your comment reminded me immediately of that section in the book where Winston goes to that park in order to be away from prying eyes and ears (If I'm remembering it correctly, it's been ages since I've read it).

Winston and Julia go out into the countryside, they each take different trains, then meet at a pre-arranged location in the middle of nowhere, and then go out into the literal woods, to talk (and have sex), and they are still paranoid under every second branch there might be a microphone.

Nobody owns the air around you, whereas the cables and routers and switches your communication propagates through are owned by private corporations and by the state

The fact that nobody owns the air around me is arbitrary. I could make the argument that because I'm in the United States they should be able to listen to any conversation in the United States (by "owning" the air or otherwise).

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