[ComputerWorld]
"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, which developed and now strongly supports the key-escrow approach.
Another ominous, foreboding quote.
Federal officials responsible for shaping information security policy said last week that legislation mandating use of the government's recently proposed encryption technology -- and banning the use of older but popular techniques -- is neither wise nor legal.
This article, nor any other alluding to `bans on cryptographic methods', is not sufficiently disturbing or alarmist. An such law would be blatantly, egregiously, grotesquely unconstitutional under protections of free speech. All hell would break lose if any such attempt reared its hideously monstrous face--imagine the Clipper `flap' multiplied by a gigabyte. Please, regarding cryptography, don't say that `the genie is out of the bottle' or `the laws would be unenforceable' -- these are tantamount to saying, `go ahead, we DARE you to try!' I fear more and more the reply will soon be, `try THIS!'