I don't think the number of ISPs is really relevant. The rule of law is pretty strong in the United States. If the government made Tor illegal, and that law withstood constitutional scrutiny, it wouldn't really matter if there was one or one thousand ISPs.
Yeah. I think that crypto-ideologues (although I'm not saying that the parent is one) often underestimate the impact that the law has in practice on these matters.
You underestimate the selective use of law by the elites. How many bankers are behind bars? Do you see anybody punished for starting a war under false pretenses? for mass surveillance? for lying to Congress about it?
I think the claim was along the lines that if you want to restrict people's freedoms in this country, it's best to get a law passed allowing you to do so. That's oversimplified, of course, as is common in such online discussions, but it makes considerable practical sense.
Your claim seems focused on other categories of wrongdoing.
Now, the two areas could overlap in the future. To date, there's been a lot of illegal surveillance that has gone unpunished, but few people have actually suffered, at least in the US, because the government has been quite restrained about its actual domestic use of the resulting information.
In the future, of course, the government might not show such restraint.
By "future" I mean, for example, the period starting next January 20.
