Re: Impact of Free Strong Crypto (Essay of sorts)

[Carl Ellison <cme@tis.com>]

>From: Black Unicorn <unicorn@access.digex.net>
>Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 22:30:22 -0400 (EDT)


>How will the complete inability of law enforcement (Federal or Local) to 
>conduct wiretaps impact collection?  Those who think that law enforcement 
>will just have to go away might want to reconsider.  Instead I think that 
>law enforcement will simply become much more intrusive as a response to the 
>unavailability of easy interception via wiretapping.


The more I try to disseminate PGP and RIPEM (and get people to use them),
the more I think that inability to conduct wiretaps and get intelligence
from them will never occur.  If it were to occur, we'd probably see laws
passed immediately against civilian cryptography.  If we merely threaten
it, we give a weapon to the FBI to request such laws and a compliant
Congress might actually go ahead and give in.  However, the prediction I
find I have to make is that ccivilian