Hams are pretty uptight about self-policing what goes on in their RF spectrum, mostly because they realize that if they don't a) other people will step in and p

Hams are pretty uptight about self-policing what goes on in their RF spectrum, mostly because they realize that if they don't a) other people will step in and police it for them and b) it would make it much easier for commercial interests to make the case for their spectrum allocations to be taken away (they're recently losing this fight in the 3.3-3.5 GHz band to 5G cellular networks and increasingly high-frequency traders are eyeing their traditional shortwave allocations to shave those next few microseconds off compared to microwave networks). If you did start transmitting encrypted stuff on the ham bands someone would probably foxhunt you (even if you were doing it for "civil disobedience") and ask you politely to stop before reporting you to the FCC. You could of course work outside of the ham bands but then what you're doing would be illegal for other reasons.