#really? 12. Encryption importance

"Encryption will be an important feature of commerce on the Web and the realization of individual autonomy. You should acquire and begin using strong encryption immediately. Just as the church attempted to ban printing at the twilight of the Middle Ages, so the United States and other aggressive governments bent on control will seek to bar effective encryption. As happened five centuries ago, this may merely drive the taboo technology into areas where the writ of established authority is weakest; assuring that it will be put to its most subversive use in undermining state control everywhere."

This is another of the controversial implications from The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age by James Dale Davidson & Lord William Rees-Mogg, Simon & Schuster, 1997

Is it really so?