"How can any government accept a situation where communications are so secure that none of their agencies can break it?" Their friends in the business communit

"How can any government accept a situation where communications are so secure that none of their agencies can break it?" Their friends in the business community can rest assured that foreign competitors, criminals, etc. are not able to eavesdrop on their communications. Spies in foreign countries could use a strong cipher without raising any suspicions. These arguments were made in the 90s you know. "Essentially law enforcement do need to investigate crime." Only to a point. If the only evidence of a crime is the plaintext of some encrypted message -- no physical evidence, no witnesses, etc. -- then the benefits of strong cryptography vastly outweigh whatever problem there is with letting the crime go unpunished.