Peter Wayner writes:

I've always assumed that the excitement behind the Digital Telephony bill was to go after VoicePGP.

Not really - Digital Telephony goes after the phone companies, not the end users, which makes it easier for the government to impose. Among other people it *is* going after are cellphone companies which are getting a lot of pressure to include encryption on their radio links (some people are pressuring them to use *real* encryption, the NSA has been pressuring them to use at most wimpy encryption, and some people have been pressuring them to put in _anything_, even rot-13, just so there's _some_ vague privacy protection out there.) It's also, of course, going after carriers who have the _gall_ to use more powerful telephone systems than the FBI can afford to crack :-) Now, VoicePGP may be the next step in banning things - after all, they could declare use of cryptography to be Probable Cause that you're conspiring about something, which would let them confiscate your computer equipment and make you sue to get it back. Bill