that's what we call national security/stability here in the middle east :D. Seriously though, the government and the three telecom companies Orange/Vodafone/Etisalat falsely think that this is a win win situation to save the telecom industry and national security, however when it reall comes to terrorism, you can organize a terror attack using facebook chat without anyone knowing anything about you, maybe even after the attack if you are paranoid enough and take all social engineering precautions.
FWIW this happens in other Arab countries too. In Dubai the same carrier Etisalat got a ban on the audio functionality of mobile apps - no calls on Whatsapp, Viber etc. You can still text though.
