Mightn't it be marginally more productive to put a bit of surveillance in front of the container boats, and require registration for the cars being put on them, then trying to totally eliminate free computing and a free internet stopping all secure communication in order to catch the 1/10000000 messages which regard stealing cars?

I don't think the actual accusation is that the police are incompetent, but rather that this can't possibly be the real goal of such a law, because there are approaches to stopping such crimes which are not only far less invasive, but also easier and more practical. So this is at best an excuse, and at worst a justification that the commenter came up with that the actual policy makers never even mentioned (I have seen the latter far too often).