Public applauded last month when Stanford investigators exposed the widespread sharing of child porn on Instagram. Had the same Stanford researchers focused more on censoring child porn than on censoring disfavored political views, we would all be better off.

But that successful investigation now appears to be part of an international effort to justify the invasion of our privacy. The British Parliament may soon pass legislation that would allow the police and military the right to read your private, encrypted text messages. And Public’s readers will recall our scoop that eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar, and his grantees, are also demanding the right to read your texts.

It all might seem like a trivial issue having nothing to do with the broader crackdown on free speech globally.

But the demand by militaries and intelligence agencies around the world to read our private messages is one of Public’s most alarming discoveries of the last six months.

[Combine that with the scope and nature of the censorship regime uncovered here in the US — in part by Shellenberger — and you can rapidly get an idea with how such power would be used by bureaucrats and ideologues to silence dissent. This would quash even the impulse to express one’s opinions privately, let alone publicly. And the people who would have this power have already shown themselves utterly untrustworthy in that position. — Ed]