yes it is stupid. but I don't expect anything else from the British government after they block porn (and many more) websites. They also have the right to put you in jail if you don't tell the police (or was it judge?) your passwords to all your devices/accounts.

I think this is truly a big brother style setup, and I'm not even one of those people that is crazy anti-surveillance.

Agreed, this does seem very much like a play for more control. Especially considering this quote from Cameron in the article:

In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read? My answer to that question is: ‘No, we must not’.

That does not seem like the kind of speech someone working in the interest of the people would come with.

Why should a couple bad groups destroy everyone else's right to privacy?

Arguably, it even achieves their goal and offloads their task of terrorizing the populace to the government. Though no doubt they would continue with their own as well, considering the source of terror is also important.

I don't see how they can think this is a good move, all it does is create animosity between the populace & the government while they should be working together for the betterment of both.

I think what they are trying to achieve with the legislation is visibility (on demand) of all messages, so that would include iMessage for sure. I think that the media have used WhatsApp as a specific example because of its popularity.

An important argument that is being made is that in reality the legislation would be difficult to enforce (how would they enforce a ban on all encryption, people could use VPN's to hide traffic, new apps will be developed etc.)

But, whether enforceable or not, the idea that the UK government would even try to exert this much control over every individual's private messages is both ludicrous and terrifying.

I'm pretty sure the iron hand of apple could flip a switch and turn off encryption on all models sold in UK.