The excuse that worked so well for so long — „because terrorism“ — seems to have lost its luster. Despite having a locked iPhone tied to a mass shooting with terrorist overtones, the FBI was unable to budge the needle on encryption backdoors or magical „lawful access“ crypto keys.

However, that doesn‘t mean any number of government entities aren‘t willing to use the ever present „threat“ of terrorism as fuel for their various civil liberties-endangering bonfires. Or that they won‘t use it as a profoundly cheap excuse to withhold information from the American public — like the Indiana State Police‘s refusal to turn over Stingray docs because doing so might allow terrorists to plan attacks on cherished annual state events like the Mule Day Parade.