actually......no....it isn't my bust. it is yours.

it says:

"knowingly and willfully uses encryption technology to conceal any incriminating communication" relating to a federal crime that they're committing, or attempting to commit".

Thus, after the fact.....I can send you an ecrypted email detailing my crime and I won't be "upping the ante" another five years.

Sure you will. The "ongoing conspiracy" (an agreement to commit a felony) continues after various events. For example, if Ted and Alice have an ongoing implicit understanding that they will meet in the shed behind her house occasionally to tend the five marijuana plants growing there, that is an ongoing conspiracy to commit a federal felony. So if, a week after Ted's last visit, Alice sends him an encrypted email saying "Come over and watch a video, or whatever", the prosecutor can clearly use that (if he can decrypt it) as 5 more years in prison, since it used encryption technology and concealed an incriminating communication (the crime being conspiracy) that they are commiting (ongoing). The prosecutors can get Ted's passphrase by granting him immunity (probably ONLY immunity from the encryption enhancement penalty, or best case, from that and conspiracy, still nailing him for the pot felony, or getting Alice to roll over on him for the whole deal!!!!) and forcing him to disclose it having eliminated his 5th amendment defenses. Then they have Alice for the pot felony, conspiracy, and the 5 year encryption booster. Of course, they will simply hang all of this draconian punishment over her head, her attorney will say they can fight for $75,000 and 2 years, during which she is in jail, or they can plead it out and become a felon with few further rights of citizenship. And if you "detail a crime" after the event in an encrypted communication, you've essentially included another person in the knowledge of a past crime in the expectation that such disclosure will remain secret from law enforcement. That is conspiracy to avoid prosecution and probably obstruction of justice. Conspiracy and obstruction are crimes, you've just used encryption in a federal felony, 5 year enhancement. Bye. For arguments re: protections from forced disclosure of keys, see http://www.rubberhose.org/current/src/doc/sergienko.html