Umm, with Clipper, will it be illegal to use other encryption in addition to clipper ? ie text -> des -> clipper -> des -> text Or is that (other encryption being illegal) likely to be a result of followup legislation ? And also, how will anyone know if you are without several court orders ? :-) At least, now for the NSA, they don't have to worry about legalities when it comes to decrypting DES (assuming they can) so why would they push for Clipper if it restricted them more ? (Sorry, I don't read much of the flame wars on this after the first few responses, if this has already been brought up)