You’re right, and there’s two things going on here, one group of people is debating the morality of what these people did in the first place, but the other take is platform compliance with law enforcement and more generally the government’s ability to access your data.

You’re contrasting that a warrant should not really be a concern compared with the government’s ability to perform truly invasive surveillance potentially without any warrant.

I don’t know that you really disagree with person you’re replying to, though. Yeah, if people are doing something their government classifies as illegal, talking about it on unencrypted spaces where it’s subject to a warrant is dumb.

Very few people would be alarmed when Facebook turns over data related to human traffickers. Some would. But for those who are focused on morality, would it matter if the method was, say, the NSA cracking encryption without a warrant? Or tapping communications through an encryption back door?They’d probably be more worried about admitting the evidence than whether the method should be allowed.

It’s certainly worth considering that if governments are criminalizing behavior people believe ought not to be a crime, they need to be more aware that communication security is a thing and there are methods and tools to help with that, and powers the government have to thwart it. But who the government is going after will make people care about the issue differently.

Thinking about hypotheticals where this plays out in other scenarios doesn’t seem like an oversimplification, it’s a valid consideration, at least for public awareness.

the police needed a warrant to get this info from Facebook.

In the USA there's due process required for authorities to gain access to your private data, not true in many countries.

As always, don’t talk with police, and don’t discuss illegal activity unencrypted or connected to your real life identity.

A person has to assume anything put out there over the internet or phone network can be inspected under criminal investigation. One has to be a dumb ass not to realize that. I've even seen stories of criminals making social media posts showing off their robbery loot. Also the style of wearing their pants falling down. Make sure to trip and fall when running from the cops. Good thing criminals make it easy for police.

Yeah, always invoke your right to remain silent. I watch a lot of crime shows, actually my wife is more into it than me so I get roped into watching them. It baffles me how criminals will sit there and let police interrogate them until they confess. Maybe it's because they think they can talk their way out of it, but then why confess. As a US citizen you can shut down an interview with police any time you want. But it's good suspects are stupid like that, makes it easy for police. They have a tough job dealing with all the knuckleheads out there.