Your assumption that "criminals" are doing something morally wrong is fundamentally flawed. Civil rights activists were criminals, as were suffragettes, and the people who protected Jews in Nazi Germany, and gay or trans people just existing in countries where that isn't allowed. All criminals. Law enforcement isn't even always carrying out the law, as we've seen with ICE arresting, assaulting, searching, deporting people on no other basis than their skin color.

Democracy dies when people can't protest. When they are under constant surveillance, afraid of being singled out by the government intelligence gathering mechanisms. Unable to speak out about injustice, organise and engage in healthy counter culture.

Look at Russia, look at China. Don't imagine that giving your own government and law enforcement the same tools of surveillance and oppression will have a different outcome.

You do realize there's another side to it, right? There are morally good examples where privacy is needed, and morally bad examples where not being able to access data is harmful.

I personally agree with you, but for most people it's not black or white. They want privacy when it suits them, but would take yours away in a heartbeat.

Yes, exactly, but if you actually follow all of those groups, none of them changed things by building bunkers into which police couldn't ever enter and any crime could happen there.

As someone who grew up on the other side of the iron curtain, I find this idea that you'll make your own government an enemy and shield criminals against it utterly naive, since that's not what actually changes society. It's a form of techno-cowardice, where people hide behind technology to avoid doing the hard stuff.