I saw that and I couldn't help rolling my eyes. By that logic, door locks also provide human traffickers the tools to involuntarily imprison innocent women and children. So clearly we need to outlaw locks on doors, everywhere.
I understand the point you're making, but the quote in full context is that it provides the tool while making the legal process of judicial court orders useless. The emphasis on the latter part is kind of where legally they have a point that there is a difference. You can order someone to just open a lock, bash down a door, or break in through a side window/thin wall. With even decently implemented encryption on a device, no such alternatives exist for law enforcement.
To be clear, I'm against the inclusion of backdoors/side-channels/key escrows for anyone on the basis that it threatens the security of everyone for the chance that law enforcement might glean something off a phone. But I do think its important to be realistic and acknowledge that there are situations in which encryption impedes the usual investigative process for law enforcement, and that many time sensitive cases may result in serious harm to individuals as a result.
I do believe that most people calling for backdoors do so in bad faith, but it's not difficult to imagine actual scenarios in which such complaints do impede an investigation. Coy reductio ad absurdum statements really don't help the discussion at large along in either direction.
Burying your secrets in a hole in the desert and never revealing the location makes the legal process of a judicial court order useless too. Should it be illegal to hide things really well?
