Most people who follow the debate over unbreakable, end-to-end encryption think that it’s more or less over. Silicon Valley has been committed to offering such encryption since at least the Snowden revelations; the FBI has abandoned its legal campaign against Apple’s device encryption; and prominent national security figures, especially those tied to the National Security Agency,, have sided with industry and against the Justice Department.

Attorney General William Barr gave a speech on encryption at the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University on July 23 that went over the usual law enforcement arguments for exceptional access.

Encryption and its effects on law enforcement’s access to data seem to occupy a perennial place in the headlines (and on Lawfare as well). The two of us have been working on it for years. The subject is often highly contested, but the fierce discussion has ignored some critical factors. One of those is how changing usage patterns and technologies will affect how law enforcement can—or can’t—obtain access.

Last Tuesday, the U.S. attorney’s office in Massachusetts announced charges against dozens of parents, college sports coaches and test-prep teachers with in a scheme to win admission to big name universities including Georgetown, Yale and Stanford. Of particular interest for this blog posting is the following excerpt from one of the charging documents.