Re: Federal key registration agency

[ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home)]

Lucky Green wrote:
> At 16:27 6/18/96, TM Peters wrote:
> >Speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, Reno said
> >her plan would require people to register with the new agency the secret
> >codes -- or "keys" -- they use to encrypt messages online.
> 
> The cat is out of the bag. Janet Reno is calling for mandatory Government
> Access to Keys. Not that her statement would surprise anyone on this list.
> Still, I believe the administration has never before publicly stated that
> people will be _required_ to deposit their encryption keys with the
> government. I wonder what the penalties for failure to comply with this
> requirement will be.
> 

A couple of questions [admittedly, I am not the best expect in American
politics]: 

1) Is there anything real that individual citizens can do?
2) Would it be helpful to kick democrats out of office and replace
them with republicans? In other words, are republicans any better
than democrats in respecting citizens' right to protecting their
privacy from the government?

	- Igor.