Encryption has been off the munitions list for a decade or more. Device encryption has been in use for years, certainly on laptops but also on some mobile devices. Data protection laws even give safe harbor when the responsible custodian has prudently deployed encryption.
Partly in response to the iOS ecosystem's move to device encryption (which the Android OS has had for three years and now likewise is establishing as a default setting), people like Director Comey have decided to demonize device encryption even while endorsing encryption in other contexts. In that effort, people like Director Comey sometimes find it convenient to conflate (1) the problem of not being to read data at rest on a seized device with (2) the problem of not being able to read data in motion in an intercepted stream. The former problem is exemplified by the case in which they lawfully seize a smartphone but cannot decrypt its contents. The latter problem is exemplified by the case in which they tap a bitstream (lawfully or not) but cannot decrypt its contents.
I would call only the latter case "surveillance." I guess I differentiate between overt demands for production and non-overt observation and interception. I treat the latter as surveillance.
Incidentally, this forked argument from the government --- that encryption is a good thing unless it works against them --- sometimes sounds like an argument that law enforcement not only has a right to collect evidence (as by probable cause + warrant) but also has a right to have the evidence exist, or at least that it be maintained in a way that will not make their investigations "go dark."
A guy who insisted all year long that the world would end on December 31 didn't become wrong on January 1. He was wrong all along.
