Is this not a standard tactic for moving the bar of what's acceptable? Similar to the San Bernardino case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_d...), it makes sense for LE/Government to cherry-pick cases with defendants who have committed terrible crimes to create precedent for their new methods, as it's harder politically to take a position "defending" them. Defence of holistic rights can be painted as defence of a terrorist/racist/paedophile etc to score points.