I do understand, but I don't think you fully understand the ramifications of what you are asking for. You lose the ability to do many kinds of selects because you have to decrypt information to search on it. I have spent a LOT of time dealing with encryption in and out of the database and my experience shows that very little data needs this level of protection or the headaches associated with it. There is a performance hit that is very likely going to be massive.

The SQL 2008 feature Transparent Data Encryption is effectively encryption of the connection not the data in the database.

Whole disk encryption like PGP or bitlocker encrypt the data on the disk, but when the system is running it is presented in clear text.

I have seen this attempted a few times, in all but one case they abandoned it pretty quickly, that single case they went for a while and then abandoned it. I have yet to see anybody go to production with anything close to what you are asking about.

So instead of taking the full database encryption approach with all of its pitfalls why don't you take this approach:

1. Implement access controls to the database. IF you don't need access you don't have access.

2. Encrypt the columns that are truly sensitive.

3. Encrypt the data at the time it is written to tape or use a bonded company to handle your tapes offsite.

CEWII