There's another possibility, which is that the Attorney General didn't think through the case, or didn't examine CALEA closely enough before deciding to go the All Writs Act route.
From a policy perspective, we don't want the government mandating that a business use any particular form of security in its devices. We want industry to compete on those systems and let the customer choose what security mechanism they prefer. Right?
> the Attorney General didn't think through the case, or didn't examine CALEA closely enough
With a case of this magnitude? That seems to me unlikely to the point of impossibility.
That's one side of the argument. The other argument, as I understand it, is that this is a step to a future akin to a Neal Stephenson novel, one we do not want to live in. The most persuasive counter-argument I see is that this future is inevitable. The most persuasive counter-counter argument is that while moving towards a future where people have access to un-subpoenable smart phones and communication mechanisms which guarantee absolute privacy [1] may be the "current of technology", how quickly we get there and the direction from which we approach it is of the outmost importance, and "in the near future and for people who can afford smart phones" is not the right timing nor direction.
1. "Absolute privacy" defined as secrecy of content and meta-data, from everyone and forever.
From a policy perspective, we don't want the government mandating that a business use any particular form of security in its devices. We want industry to compete on those systems and let the customer choose what security mechanism they prefer. Right?