It is not a settled question whether you can be forced to decrypt or not; some judges have considered encrypted drives protected and others have not. And the UK has compelled individuals to decrypt as well.

The fact remains that you are much better off encrypting in the first place even if you are eventually forced to decrypt. You can challenge the order to decrypt, you can add more time to the investigation and give your lawyers more time to put together a strategy for whatever angle they consider most prudent, you can prevent surreptitious listening that may arouse interest in your activity in the first place, and so on.

Even if you ultimately are forced to comply with an order to decrypt, which again is by no means guaranteed, you still do yourself a lot of favors by encrypting from the get go. And we haven't even mentioned protection from non-governmental entities like script kiddies, competitors, or tabloids.

> Stenography is a good idea, though.

Steganography is provably secure but requires a lot of cover data and careful implementation.

Steganography is less useful for most purposes than most people want.

I think you mean steganography. "Stenography" is writing down what someone is saying.

Do you have a source on this? Isn't there such a thing as "you have the right to remain silent" in court as well?

I don't think so. If you're really concerned about communication staying irretrievable by hostile players you will have to use some alternate channels and take care to ensure that you don't leave tracks on the devices that would get confiscated. I wouldn't just plop something in Costa Rica and expect it to be OK.

You'd want to look at where the spammers and malware pushers host or are located, mostly china, russia and a few eastern european countries. Of course you're trading one set of problems for another: depending on the location you'll likely lack most IP protection, be subject to constant surveillance, extortion and organized crime.