BXA on Crypto Plans

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

Excerpt of BXA head William Reinsch statement on Goodlatte's
SAFEncryption Bill HR 695 on March 20, 1997:

The Administration has stated on numerous occasions that we 
do not support mandatory key escrow and key recovery. Our 
objective is to enable the development and establishment of 
a voluntary key management system for public-key based 
encryption. We believe the Administration's policy is 
succeeding in bringing key recovery products to the 
marketplace. Our attention is now turning toward how we can 
best facilitate the development of the key management 
infrastructure that will support those products. To that end, 
we will shortly submit legislation intended to do the following:

  Expressly confirm the freedom of domestic users to choose any 
  type or strength of encryption.

  Explicitly state that participation in the key management 
  infrastructure is voluntary.

  Set forth legal conditions for the release of recovery 
  information to law enforcement officials pursuant to lawful 
  authority and provides liability protection for key recovery 
  agents who have properly released such information.

  Criminalizes the misuse of keys and the use of encryption to 
  further a crime.

  Offers, on a voluntary basis, firms that are in the business 
  of providing public cryptography keys the opportunity to 
  obtain government recognition, allowing them to market the 
  trustworthiness implied by government approval.

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Full statement: http://jya.com/bxahr695.htm