Commerce Sec. Hearings and Encryption

I have been watching the confirmation hearings for William Daley, and I was amazed at the number of references in the questioning to encryption. I have been watching confirmation hearings for a long time and have never noticed this much attention being placed on such a (formerly?) obscure topic. It appears that encryption is definitely a big blip on the governmental radar screen now, although whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is definitely a debatable question. It's interesting to me that all this interest is coming up in a confirmation hearing for a *commerce* secretary. Maybe the commercial aspects of encryption can have a positive impact on the current restrictions; privacy rights certainly haven't had any impact. =Bill=