It seems like that you simply don't understand the mathematical nature of strong encryption. It's something God created, and the fact that encryption might be difficult or impossible to break doesn't mean that you suddenly have to grant the State arbitrary Tyrannical power which violates Unalienable rights.
About those codes: suppose they are in a safe deposit box. And suppose that the government does get a key from somewhere. Now further suppose that the safe deposit box has been buried at a location known only to the suspect—an American citizen.
Now, since the information is theoretically sooooooooo important, does that mean you can torture this American to get him to divulge the whereabouts of his buried safe deposit box? Can you violate due process, if it's really, really important? How about threatening his family? It's a slippery slope, isn't it?
Look man, this branch of math is what it is. It's relentless. Private key/public key cryptography, for example, can be readily engaged in by any American. There's simply no way to require a person to—after generating his key pair—send his private key to Apple or the government.
Universal back doors—which is precisely what you're demanding the government effectively be given—are simply not something you can grant to government, all in the name of expediency. It's so blatantly totalitarian, and such an obvious infringement of Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights that it's ludicrous.
Sorry, man. What you're describing, in toto, is a Tyrannical and unconstitutional situation with limitless State power. You can't say "totalitarianism is OK" just because not being totalitarian means that intelligence gathering becomes difficult for government.
The only way to prevent this whole situation would be for government to ban certain branches of mathematics itself. It's simply not practical...
“Universal back doors—which is precisely what you’re demanding the government effectively be given—are simply not something you can grant to government”
As a thought exercise. Try to name one power the Government has been granted that it did not immediately abuse in spades. Anyone remember DHS? Created to protect us from another Islamic attack like 9/11... now intercepting fake rolexes, child porno, creating videos of how to safely deep fry a Turkey, etc etc. The only things they -refuse- to do is investigate islamists, and mosques and deport undesireables.
They abuse EVERY power they are granted, bar none.