There is also the mistaken belief that effective restriction of free thought is is possible through political/legal means. That strategy was ineffective against communism and remains ineffective today.
Yes, and as if a massive outrage cannot be planned and executed without using digital communication or perhaps using it but with pre-arranged 'innocuous' codes as a one-time pad.
Restriction of free thought has been extremely effective. Politically and economically the US is practically a monoculture. Encryption could only make it more so, through the chilling effect of forcing dissenters to think more than twice about what they communicate, who they communicate it with, and how they do it.
It makes mainstream dissent like Occupy very much harder - and that's not even thinking about how it would have influenced historical dissent like the Civil Rights or Anti-War Movements.
Commercially it also guarantees that the US has access to corporate secrets. If encryption is de facto illegal, how do you communicate commercially sensitive information?
