Would be interested in seeing your sources for this. I've yet to see evidence that this has the significant upsides that would, definitely not justify, but at least explain, the push towards limiting fundamental freedoms.

There's a reason "who will think of the children" is ridiculed: there's no evidence that this is the intent or that there are outcomes. Everything I've read to date shows that surveillance is not effective in curbing CSAM, that the people (and especially organised crime) that engage into such activity are not using plain text and twitter to talk to each other, that those solutions that are known to have outcomes are not being invested in or enforced, etc.

If any of this was about protecting children, that Epstein thing wouldn't have been buried and forgotten already.