The issue isn't that they won't hand over documents x,y,z, they'll just hand over fake documents x, y, and z, while the real documents remain encrypted. When t

The issue isn't that they won't hand over documents x,y,z, they'll just hand over fake documents x, y, and z, while the real documents remain encrypted. When the government asks why they can't read files Real_X, Real_y, and Real_Z, they'll claim they're private email communications between employees, and that you can't force them to turn over the keys. But in reality, they were secret bribery emails between corporate executives and local politicians. Prior to cryptography, you could pull this off as well, you could have fake books. Hide the real books offsite so warrants can't find them, etc. Cryptography doesn't change whether it's possible to do or not, it just makes it easier to do and scales better. I mean, even the Nazi's could have used one time pads by carrier pigeon if they wanted to, Enigma wasn't even needed. But the logistics of doing it are less convenient. As cryptography becomes more universal, more automatic, more user friendly, OpSec will become less of a burden for less diligent people. Infact, we hope it does, because sloppy OpSec is a huge problem for society right now. Just look at passwords.