I completely agree with that.

I was born and raised in a country occupied by communist invaders, so I know very well how unbelievably horrific it was to live under continuous surveillance.

Despite the many Western fiction works, either movies or novels, which attempted to describe how life was in the Eastern Europe and Soviet Union, I have not seen any that succeeded to really convey how awful that was, because it is very difficult to imagine it when you have not experienced it.

After 1990 there was a short time when things seemed to be improving in the world, about the human rights, but that did not last for long.

After 2000, the Western countries began to resemble more and more every year with the communist countries they were formerly criticizing.

This sad evolution concerns not only the continuous attempts to restrict the basic human rights but also the continuous reduction in competition in the economy, by more and more mergers and acquisitions.

Despite what some say, the socialist economies were not really different from the capitalist economies, but they were identical to the extreme form of a capitalist economy, where, in the absence of regulation, everything is produced by monopolies. Now, with the exception of few domains where there is still vigorous competition, even the American economy is so much dominated by quasi-monopolies, that it resembles more to the old Russian economy than to the American economy of 30 years ago.

Twenty years ago, when I designed some electronics hardware, I could search the Internet for the datasheets and manuals of possible components and I had many possible choices for each of them.

Now, for many key components, I have only one possible source. Moreover, for many important components that I might use, I cannot really determine whether they could be used, because their technical documentation is provided only after signing an NDA and only if you intend to buy really large quantities.

Such changes were very gradual, so for those who did not live enough to span several decades of experience, the way things are done now may seem normal, but they are not and they are definitely worse than before. Now it is far more difficult to innovate.

Regarding surveillance and encryption, most Western people, who have not yet experienced the extreme abuses towards which the current legislation slowly evolves, are very naive and they do not understand how dangerous this really is.

The irony is that now the Western countries are trying to make lawful things that not even the communists had the courage to introduce in their laws.

Even in the communist constitution that was valid when I was a child there were constitutional rights for the secrecy both of the phone conversations and of the mail messages.

Obviously, like the NSA, the secret police did not care about what is lawful and what is not, so they intercepted any mail message or phone conversation they desired, but at least there was no doubt that their activities are illegal.
Fortunately, they did not have the technical abilities to intercept all the phone & mail communications, like today. Otherwise I would be still living in a communist country.

Because of my experience, no matter what abusive laws might be introduced in the future by corrupt politicians and no matter which would be the consequences, I would never recognize that any other human being has the right to command me to not encrypt any information that belongs to me. Equivalently with being against the interdiction of encryption, I would also never accept that any human being has the right to demand that I must answer to any question, if I do not want to answer.

Of course, if that question had been in the context of a legal investigation, refusing to answer some question may be considered as evidence supporting the supposition that the questioned person might have done something wrong. Therefore that person might be punished for what he/she is supposed to have been done, if being guilty is considered certain enough.

However, punishing the person just for refusing to answer a question, without any evidence strong enough that the person has committed any other crime, as it is frequent now in the USA, this is something that I consider to be an unacceptable abuse and a breach of the most basic human right.