Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door

Given its hegemonic status in terms of financial, technological, and military strength, pointing the finger at the US is not unwarranted. It's obvious that other countries have been doing this and will continue to do so. However, rather than increasing resources and focus on technological prowess, the US has decided to focus on maintaining superiority in traditional warfare. Trampling the rights of its citizens and the interest of its companies to try to, essentially, preempt any potential security threat. For the past two decades, at least, the American ideals of personal freedom, which are touted as inalienable rights, have been eroded; either through secretive judicial acts or in the open with impunity. If this is to continue as it stands right now or to escalate, as this additional legislation suggests, then the American public and its government have to reconcile with the idea that their two-hundred-year-old experiment failed; that the ideals enshrined in the Constitution failed to secure their democracy from slipping into an authoritarian government; that the only form of government that can be sustained is one where those ideals are irrelevant.