I have always thought that the Netherlands was a very liberal country. But now the government is proposing a law that totally outlaws the use of encryption methods. According to this proposal anyone that wants to use encryption have to register the keys they use with the government, thus allowing the government to decrypt anything they want to decrypt. It is also proposed to totally ban the sales of anything that can be used to encrypt data. Ofcourse this is a blatant violation of civil rights, but to my big surprise the opposition is not even acting upon it. According to them, the matter is not interesting!!!! It most certainly would not surprise you that this news has really outraged almost anyone in the computer and telecommunications industry. But the really sad thing is the procedure. Here in the United States there is a at least a public discussion about the use of the Clipper chip. In the Netherlands the government planned to approve this law before the upcoming elections in the beginning of May '94. Given the total lack of interest from the opposition it seems that they might actually succeed with these dirty scheme. Any comments???? Mike