Agreed, but I really feel like this time, the public vaguely understands and has more of a stake in it than before. Now, keep in mind, this is just as important to the day-to-day user as it was in the cypherpunk days, but now, everyone has a device in their hands that they can touch, and know is related to this. The public knows how precious its data is, now.
The last time this fight occurred... the last two times this fight occurred, actually, no one in the public had any clue what we were all talking about.
> ... no one in the public had any clue what we were all talking about.
Unfortunately, most of them still don't.
You're right that "everyone has a device in their hands that they can touch, and know is related to this" but most of them still don't understand the significance of it -- if they are even aware of it at all!
My girlfriend is, I think, fairly representative of the "younger generation", for example. She's 21, not really that "techy" (despite having an iPad and iPhone), and is constantly using Facebook, Snapchat, and probably a handful of other apps that I've never even heard of. The first she became aware of any of this was after Tim Cook's "A Message to Our Customers". That evening, she was sitting on the couch on her phone and asked me, "Did you see this message thing from Apple?" My initial response was, "How did you hear about it?". "It's all over Facebook."
She knows, now, that it's an important issue to me. I've explained it to her as much as she cared to listen and she's seen and asked about the multitude of EFF stickers on my laptops (after seeing someone on TV with some of the same stickers).
She doesn't really care that much, though, and, as far as I know, pretty much none of her friends (all within a couple years of her age) do either. As long as they get what they want, they're content.
It doesn't affect them directly and so it gets none of their attention. Most of them have other, more important (to them) things that do affect them directly and, because of that, are much more relevant to their daily lives.
> I really feel like this time, the public vaguely
> understands and has more of a stake in it than before.
Black people are literally shot dead, on camera, for no reason by the police and no-one gives a shit. People (mostly, but not exclusively, black ones) have their lives effectively ended by drug policy - policy that's only now being tweaked around the edges with limited leniency towards users of 1 specific drug. You seriously think there'll be any meaningful, effective outcry when encryption is banned?
Suck it up; it's coming. I reckon a)4 years, b) the next big terrorist attack to hit a major western country or c) any attack to hit any country where encryption provides any protection at all to the alleged attackers, whichever comes first.
An interesting thing about this is that successfully organizing in any fashion (violent or peaceful) against something like police shooting people for no damn reason pretty much requires encryption. So encryption is needed to effectively fight... well... anything that the government is doing.
I'll continue using open source software(developed out of the US if necessary) that uses proper encryption with no known backdoors and hope that is good enough.
The last time this fight occurred... the last two times this fight occurred, actually, no one in the public had any clue what we were all talking about.