Interesting stance to state publicly.
It's interesting that a few of the political parties are adding digital rights to their manifestos. http://www.libdems.org.uk/protecting-your-data-online-with-a...
Key measures in the Liberal Democrat Digital Rights Bill include:
- Prison sentences for companies conducting large-scale data theft and illegally selling on personal data
- Beefed up powers for the Information Commissioner to fine and enforce disciplinary action on government bodies if they breach data protection laws
- Legal rights to compensation for consumers when companies make people sign up online to deliberately misleading and illegible terms & conditions
- Code of Practice for online services who would by law have to correct information about members of the public where it is inaccurate or defamatory
- Enshrining in law the responsibility of government to defend the free press, including the rights of journalists and citizen journalists to express their views freely online
- Prevent government from watering down cyber-security and encryption measures used by British business
For non UK types the Lib Dems (junior partner in the coalition) tend to try and play both sides of the fence ie pitch progressive ideas to Labour supporters and conservative (traditional 18th century Liberal ideas to tory's)
Also consider that developers and systems administrators (and in general the sorts of people who use ssh) are far more likely to have the technical know-how to launch a sophisticated attack.
Putting all that together, it would not surprise me if the use of ssh were used as an identifying marker by the United States government to single individuals out for increased surveillance. Grant you, if this happens I think it is absolute bullshit, but I think there is some paranoid bureaucratic logic that leads to this conclusion.