DoD rolled out today the new Defense Threat Reduction Agency which combines several agencies -- Defense Special Weapons Agency, Defense Technology Security Administration, On-Site Inspection Agency and others -- into a new organization whose principle purpose will be to control the spread of technologies of mass destruction. See remarks made at the opening ceremony by Hamre and others: http://jya.com/dtra100198.htm And the new, informative DTRA Web site: http://www.dtra.mil The briefing remarks are of interest for what they disclose about military planning for combating domestic terrorism (parallel to what the FBI said about it yesterday), promises to speed export licensing and a passing reference by Hamre to "a recent ten month process of encryption policy review." Which may refer to the recent administration policy announcement or maybe another in the works. With the build-up of domestic terrorism fighting forces -- all the mil and gov agencies -- and noises about legislation being developed for more, it's worth pondering what is coming with a crackdown on domestic use of encryption. The Canadian duplicitous announcement today may offer a clue to what's being secretly agreed upon internationallly: state there will be no domestic controls (to assure privacy and secure commerce) coupled with promises to ease export limits (to assure commercial producers), then contradict that with a statement about new legislation to criminalize encryption use in the name of "public safety" and provision for access to encrypted data (to assure national security and law enforcement). Tell all parties what they want to hear in public, then arrange for what's really going to happen in secrecy among those responsible parties who know how to bear the terrible burden of keeping society safe and sound. Which brings up Time's new "Digital Daily" replacement for Netley News. News seems to have been eliminated in favor of entertaining fluff and product promo, even worse than "mainstream" Time itself. What's up Declan? Has the ghost of Luce come back to order Time online to shut up reporting unpleasant nefaria and get on with narcotizing the masses via Luce's incomparable coy language of insider duplicity?