&gt; Why are people so uncomfortable deferring their opinions to people who know these things?<p>I think you might find that a non-trivial subset, if not outright majority, do deferring their opinions to people <i>who know these things</i>.<p>They often get information and analysis from the news, their government, and that &quot;one guy who is good at computers&quot;. I use pgp and gpg, I use ssh, and I am a programmer. I know very little about how cryptography works, but likely enough to appraise someone else&#x27;s ability to shepherd such discussion and policy.<p>So what heuristic would you apply here? I love the EFF but they have not succeeded in any mainstream endeavor. I do not mean to belittle their accomplishments, but what percent of people reading this article know what the EFF is?