[E.H. & L.D.]
"We tried to come up with a technique that would not require legislation," said Clint Brooks, advisor to the director of the National Security Agency,
Another ominous, foreboding quote.
I think this neither ominous nor foreboding. This statement was apparent within a week or so of the original announcement.
I've analyzed this elsewhere. You are taking this at face value. First of all, the person (apparently a very high-ranking advisor, probably the highest and closest to the project to appear in the media) is already talking in the past tense. If they were confident and not rattled it would be `we've come up with a technique that doesn't require legislation'. So far so good. But at this late date, and the quote is presumably fresh, it has that vague hint that they are now *considering* the legislative approach given the `nice guy' approach failed. Cypherpunks, beware! I think it could really happen. *No one* in the government has ruled out domestic cryptographic regulation. We have nothing but the spineless whimperings of Kammer saying `I can't see what it would accomplish'. Everybody has this strange mindset that such a thing is conceivable. WHAT? As I was telling someone on the list, that would be like waking up *into* a nightmare. Here's the likely scenario: they come up with a way of `certifying' or `licensing' cryptographic equipment with penalties that have some teeth (like ability to confiscate on `suspicion'!) and intimidate cryptographic developers. Why? Well, to protect the public from inferior cryptography, of course. We have to make sure there's no problems with the hardware, isn't that obvious? I hope CPSR and EFF have their lawyers revved up, because this is Supreme Court material. Legislation of cryptography is the most obnoxious, foul-smelling decomposition I've ever considered. Doesn't anyone get it? Clipper represents a startling shift from NSA policy to tinkering with *domestic* cryptography on the *large-scale* by intent, despite, as CPSR points out, no legal foundation whatsoever (and in fact, I'd buy a jackhammer or bulldozer before I see anybody erecting one). A startling shift from a passive to an *active* role in ensuring wiretapping. The seriousness of this kind of infraction only comes around once every few decades. Don't be fooled by the recent suggestions that Clipper will be put on hold! The root of the conflict is still untouched!
This single quotation will be enormously useful in getting the legislature to take specific and bill-oriented action about the wiretap chips. In the checks and balance system, the legislature makes laws; the executive makes them happen.
You seem to favor a legislative approach to protecting cryptography. Well, all I can say is that there are a lot of pitfalls. In my opinion a 200 year old scrap of paper is all the verbiage we need. There is nothing extremely unusual about cryptography from a legal standpoint. Its just another medium of data transmission.
The executive is not supposed to go charging off and making de facto legislation. The only thing new about it is that it confirms what I've thought for over a month: that the executive branch is trying to do an end run around the legislature.
I'm glad you came to this epiphany on the original, true treachery of the `initiative', but I'm sorry to say I don't share it. If by `executive' you are alluding to Clinton, clearly he had very little to do with it, and as I've said elsewhere on sci.crypt, his support is convenient but not necessary. Even Bush's involvement was surely extremely marginal at best. The *true* problem is that there is a massive entrenchment of inbred bureacrats at a site that has the initials F.M. that is completely insulated from the periodic cleansings of elections, devoid of overhead accountability and the venerable mechanisms for `checks and balances' and `division of power' in our government you cite, and paid tens of billions of dollars a year by *us* to find ways of *evading* protections on privacy and spying on the neighbors (friend and foe alike). They will not go away quietly. Ah, but as everyone knows, neither will I. BTW, could anyone give a reference on the FEAL politics history? It's just like deja vu all over again.