Encrypt all you like. It boils down to this: Will a government make you prove a negative, and if you don't, will it lock you up?<p>If you have encrypted files, there must have been or still be a key to decrypt it. You will be asked for the key. You will either given them the key, say no, or say you don't have it. The first two are no good, so all you have is the denial that you have the key. If government cant find the key, you will be asked to hand it over.<p>And that's the crux.<p>What then does the government do? All it can then do is make it an offence to withhold a key. How do they prove you have the key, if they themselves can't find it? You then have to prove the impossible, that you do not have the key, a negative. Which, even if you are telling the complete god's truth, you can never, ever, prove.<p>So, having an encrypted file, that you cannot or will not decrypt on demand is or will become a criminal offence. All encryption does, in the eyes of government, act as evidence of guilt. The suspect has an encrypted file, we can verify its contents, she wont give us the key, there for she has "something to hide", and there for must be guilty.<p>I can well imagine encrypted files being stored like athletes blood samples, waiting to be tested or decrypted by future methods.<p>We can not win unless we accept so risk and stop expecting our governments to do <i>everything</i> to stop the bad people. If a bomb goes off in Whatevercity, we must not be angry if it happened because the NSA were NOT collecting mass data, or something similar. We must make it clear to government that we are prepared to trade the risk of being blown up for our privacy and freedom, and that if that freedom contributed to the attack, we <i>MUST</i> accept that, and not suddenly switch and blame government. And the NSA, and the likes, must be allowed to say, "look we could have acted, here is the evidence, but we had to respect freedom and privacy", and not be lambasted for it. We have to reply, "OK, fair enough, we understand and accept that." Equally, of course, we need to know they did everything else legally and morally possible.<p>Question is, are we as a people able to do that? Or do we expect zero risk lives?<p>And all that is assuming there is zero risk from the powers government wants. Such laws and thinking creates a whole new avenue of risk.<p>Which is why I for one am quite prepared to say to government, cool it down, back off, set some limits, respect those limits, and if you fail because of that, I both accept it and forgive you, because I want to be free.<p>BTW, one of the few countries I have been to is Norway. Beautiful, stunning, country and fantastic people. If I wanted to or had to leave the UK, it would be one of the first places I would consider. I'd love Norway to be the savior of privacy and freedom, but I sadly cant see it.