“But I don’t think you’d like living in a world of ineffective courts that can’t compel evidence.”
Actually yes, yes I would. Compelled evidence. wow, you aren’t even aware that this is bad. And the 4th amendment doesn’t mean the government can access every data point out there. Would you also forbid shredders? I mean, what if the government wants all of your papers and you quickly shred them?
I agree.
Treating the use of encryption as the same as destroying evidence with a shedder is one possible solution.
But it doesn’t address the situation where the owner is deceased.
This brings to mind a great analogy. Apricot Inc. a company makes a consumer level shredder that does both linear and cross shredding. On of Apricot's high-end shredders was used by some terrorists to destroy documents that may or may not have been used to plot their terrorist act. However, the desk next to the shredder only contained work related paperwork and the shredder was owned and supplied by the terrorist's employer. There was another room with another desk that had been stripped of all paperwork and a pristine shredder and out in the back an incinerator was filled with the ashes of paper and shredded paper ashes, soaked with water to forever destroy them. The neighbors had seen him burning lots of stuff the day before the terrorist attack and had even told him that burning was prohibited and he had yelled "Alahu Akbar" at them.
The FBI has muddied the waters a bit by hiring a six year old to try and assemble some of the bits of confetti like a jigsaw puzzle, and, since the six year old couldn't read, nothing makes any sense of his paste up, so they re-shredded his pasted up efforts.
The FBI gets a All Writs Act court order from a Federal Magistrate Judge ordering the Apricot, the manufacturer of the shredder, to invent a device that can take a basket full of the confetti from one of their shredders and re-assemble the individual pieces into completely assembled properly assembled papers so the FBI can read the shredded documents. Apricot says it would be almost impossible to devise such a machine, although perhaps techinecally feasible with lots of money and time it could be done, and files a Motion to Dismiss. The FBI calls Apricot all kinds of nasty names, saying they are just interested in their profits and sales.