Encryption = crime?

Encryption is one of the few "defiant" technologies still available to the great unwashed masses.

I call it defiant because it runs counter to a growing demand by governments to dismantle people's right to privacy and counter to their demands to have access to any and all information they might want.

A growing number of Western "democracies" have already made it a crime not to disclose on-demand, the decryption keys for data which has been encrypted. The reality is that some of today's readily available encryption programs can produce incredibly powerful protection for any material that the owner does want not to share with others -- and authorities are not happy. If I recall correctly, as far back as the 1990s, the widely used PGP encryption code was defined as "armament" and therefore became a restricted export from the USA.