chancer said:
Not specifically because the tor protocol has been backdoor-ed or anything, but because it's pretty easy to tell over a decent period of time whether or not somebody is using tor. They fact that they could be doing some 'dodgy shit' could be then inferred from this, and legitimate traffic sniffed 'to protect the public' blah blah blah
The beauty of tor is also that you can't prove you weren't doing 'dodgy shit'
Yes, all of that is true.
Still, using Tor by itself is not illegal. And again, even if you "commit stupid (privacy-wise) mistakes", if you're not some kingpin, why should you care? They still can't snoop on your Tor traffic.
My point is that Tor is like the blind spot of the government surveillance. You can be doing whatever you want there - not necessarily illegal things. You can just use it because you don't want your activities to be recorded, it's perfectly normal to desire privacy. And
most of the time you won't be bullied by the goverment without some traces of due process.
Heck, I was bullied by police for no reason and I really wasn't doing
anything. There's no way to be really "safe", and Tor is as safe as riding elevators or cutting vegetables, just much more interesting.