State v. Levie
The main purpose of encryption is to change any data to a humanly unreadable form. Nowadays, encryption is seen as one of the key solutions to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of information. 
Companies and governmental entities have been spending time and money implementing ways to fight cybercrime and increase awareness between internet users and general public with the purpose to reduce the occurrence of crimes such as Identity theft. 
Mainly, one can say that encryption is about privacy. The right to a "safety zone" and privacy exists in the First and Fourth Amendment rights in the USA where a remarkable and recent privacy-based law has been approved, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. In Europe the Lisbon Treaty describes the protection of fundamental data as fundamental human right. 
While achieving privacy through the use of encryption seems to provide everyone with answers to decrease the disclosure of personal information, it benefits the possibility to conceal from authorities acts of terrorism, child pornography and others.
The use of encryption tools is becoming more and more disseminated; states are starting to make a crime "to use encryption". States like Illinois in USA are creating specific laws to handle this matter : "A person shall not knowingly use or attempt to use encryption, directly or indirectly, to:
Human rights and encryption
The debate ignited after the Edward Snowden revelations and the well-documented increase in deployed encryption measures by Internet services, device makers and users, as well as a concerted call from the technical community and civil society to increase encryption use and security to address mass surveillance practices. The increased adoption of encryption by the industry has been received critically by certain government actors, the FBI in particular. This led to the widely reported FBI–Apple encryption dispute over the possibility to gain access to information on the iPhone in assistance to law enforcement. In 2016, several bills were introduced in the US Congress that would place new limits encryption under USA law. The USA's legal system promotes and requires security measures to be implemented in the relevant contexts, including cryptographic methods of various kinds, to ensure security in commerce and trade. Relevant laws are the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) of 2014, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and also the Federal Trade Commission Act. These acts contain security requirements and thereby indirectly require or stimulate the use of encryption in certain circumstances. Finally, many state breach notification laws treat encrypted data as a safe harbor by exempting firms that have encrypted data from notice obligations.