Re: a new role for the NSA

If I was in charge of the NSA, I would argue to my budget-dispensing superiors that all of the strong crypto just meant that I needed a bigger budget to scan for data.

Indeed, the NSA's opposition to crypto (be it bad standards or arcane export regulations) has one clear intent: to keep down the cost of wiretaping. Wiretaping makes it easier for "law enforcement" to identify and take action against undesirable elements. Be it communists, environmentalists, unsanctioned drug dealers, civil rights activists, union leaders, guerila heating engineers, or just some poor bloke who blew the whistle on the wrong multinational; wiretaping facilitates not only finding them and finding what to charge them with. brad