I'm writing up a response to the Gelernter editorial and have the following notes...if you have any comments, please send me mail so I can revise and add to the argument. Also, I recall an NSA spokesperson said something that amounted to an admission that Clipper would not stop the smart terrorist or somesuch in response to a question at a press conference. Does anyone know what snippet that is (unfortunately, my archive tapes are inaccessible right now). This would be a nice quote to include. Paul E. Baclace peb@netcom.com -------------------------------------------- What Gelernter does not mention: We have wiretaps today and he still got bombed. (I deplore the Ludite terrorist who allegedly did the bombing and I am not unaffected by this in circuitous ways...) Some crimes are always hard to stop, regardless of technology. Note that arson and serial murders still happen and we have a free society. Only a police state would mitigate such crimes, but who would guard the guards? The real decision that people need to make about privacy regards balance of power. Privacy is power. Setting up laws that require privacy to be violable for all time to come is giving up the most important non-enumerated right. People who live under oppressive governments need privacy. There is no guarantee that the U.S. government will never abuse its power. The digital telephony bill and Clipper initiative, if both are passed, will pave the way for desktop wiretaps. A warrant could be requested and granted by a judge by electronic mail and then the wiretap itself could be turned on remotely. It could be accomplished in minutes after the required forms are filled out. Wiretaps will become cheaper and faster. This will be very tempting to abuse. Remember that Nixon kept a list of enemies and had them wiretapped. This brings into question the whole warrant issuing process and has nothing to do with technology. Prediction: If Clipper is used widely one day, the first time a terrorist blows up a building and uses unbreakable encryption in order to pull it off, the government will not be able to resist a new effort to ban cryptography. Since neither the Digital Telephony bill or Clipper will stop the smart terrorist, it is only a matter of time. Cryptography amounts to inventing a private language. A ban on cryptography would thus violate the First Amendment. As people conduct more of their life on the information superhighway, privacy will become more important over time. The passing of the digital telephony bill put in place cheap mechanisms for spying on citizens that a corrupt government could use.