Encyption isn't traditional, but neither is it traditional for common people to have records of the conversations they had with friends and family, least of all

Encyption isn't traditional, but neither is it traditional for common people to have records of the conversations they had with friends and family, least of all records that are possessed and preserved indefinitely by any third party. Even if you consider letter writing; letters might be intercepted by the government but even then the postal service wasn't maintaining an archive of the contents of all the letters everybody ever sent.