After what Inman tried to do to civilian crypto in the late 1970s, the word "slime" keeps coming to mind.
I think this is mistaken, in the sense that we think of lawyers, car salesmen, RBOC directors, etc. as slime. What Inman did was wrong from our point of view, but I think he was acting forthrightly and honestly and in concert with what he believes.
Okay, I admit that "slime" may be a bit too strong. And according to the "Puzzle Palace", Inman was surprisingly enlightened (at least for a senior military officer in the late 1970s) when it came to one privacy-related topic, that of allowing civilian gays to serve openly in the NSA. As I recall, he agreed that a gay out of the closet was much less likely to be blackmailed than one that was still in the closet, rejecting the argument that an openly gay NSA employee represented an unacceptable security risk. But I *still* can't forgive him for how he tried to kill civilian cryptography as NSA director, especially since his more recent comments to John Perry Barlow tend to indicate that he hasn't changed his views much, if at all. This is a guy that will have to be watched *very* carefully, especially since everybody in Washington seems to be falling all over themselves to praise him. Phil