At 05:19 PM 4/30/97 -0800, Tim May wrote: ..elided..

""§2804. Prohibition on mandatory key escrow

"(a) PROHIBITION. -- No person in lawful possession of a key to encrypted information may be required by Federal or State law to relinquish to another person control of that key. "(b) EXCEPTION FOR ACCESS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT PURPOSES.-Subsection (a) shall not affect the authority of any investigative or law enforcement officer, under any law in effect on the effective date of this chapter, to gain access to a key to encrypted information. "

Sounds good...a ban on key escrow, right? No, because "EXCEPTION FOR ACCESS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT PURPOSES" could easily be used to mandage key escrow. After all, even Louis Freeh and Dorothy Denning have never argued that key escrow is for use by non-law enforcement!

I'd like to point out that the key phrase in there seems to be "under any law in effect on the effective date of this chapter" -- altho it's gobbledegooked, the intent seems to say "if there is no law in effect mandating GAK when this bill becomes law, there can never be a law passed which does" Or in other words, it has the effect of making GAK no better, or worse, than under current law, while preventing passage of GAK laws in the future.