There <i>is</i> no fact of the matter, for the recoverability of <i>what someone believes to be encrypted</i> files. The state has one subjective belief—that the files are real, but encrypted. You might have a different belief—e.g. that the files never existed, and your disk contains random data with a disk-encryption header prepended. The concern is that you can be held in contempt for what the government <i>believes</i> to be true—that real data is there, under encryption, which you are not revealing—without that necessarily having any connection to reality.<p>By analogy: the government can compel me to open a safe, but it shouldn&#x27;t be able to compel me to open something that—for all examinable intents and purposes—is a block of concrete with the facade of a safe door attached. I could certainly be held in contempt for refusing to open something that has been proved to be a safe; but holding me in contempt for refusing to open a concrete block, because they believe I have some magic power to turn it into a safe, is Kafkaesque.