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It is not the intent of the National Security Agency to
undermine the economic competitiveness of U.S. industry.
It must be recognized, however, that cryptographic
technology continues to be viewed as vital to national
and international security interests. - 1992
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People using Clipper would have a lot more security in
their messages than they have today because many people
use few safeguards on their e-mail. - 1994
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Unbreakable encryption would give really bad people, such
as child pornographers, a sanctuary. - 1994
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The world will be a safer place if criminals cannot take
advantage of a ubiquitous, standardized encryption
infrastructure that is immune from any conceivable law
enforcement wiretap. Even if you're worried about
illegal government taps, key escrow reinforces the
existing requirement that every wiretap and every
decryption must be lawfully authorized. The key escrow
system means that proof of authority to tap must be
certified and audited, so that illegal wiretapping by a
rogue prosecutor or police officer is, as a practical
matter, impossible. - 1994
~~~
The real key to network security is making sure that only
the right people get access to particular data.
That's why a digital signature is so much more
important to future network security than encryption. If
everyone on a net has a unique identifier that others
cannot forge, there's no need to send credit card
numbers - and so nothing to intercept. And if everyone
has a digital signature, stealing passwords off the Net
is pointless. - 1994
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What worries law enforcement agencies - what should worry
them - is a world where encryption is standardized and
ubiquitous: a world where anyone who buys an $80 phone
gets an "encrypt" button that interoperates
with everyone else's; a world where every fax machine
and every modem automatically encodes its transmissions
without asking whether that is necessary. In such a
world, every criminal will gain a guaranteed refuge from
the police without lifting a finger. - 1994
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If banks and corporations and government agencies buy key
escrow encryption, criminals won't get a free ride.
They'll have to build their own systems - as they do
now. And their devices won't interact with the
devices that much of the rest of society uses. -
1994
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As long as legitimate businesses use key escrow, we can
stave off a future in which acts of terror and organized
crime are planned with impunity on the public
telecommunications system. - 1994
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The government went forward with key escrow, not because
the key escrow proposal received a universally warm
reception, but because none of the proposal's critics
was able to suggest a better way to accommodate
society's interests in both privacy and law
enforcement. Unless somebody comes up with one, key
escrow is likely to be around for quite a while.
That's because the only alternative being proposed
today is for the government to design or endorse
encryption systems that will cripple law enforcement when
the technology migrates - as it surely will - to the
private sector. And that alternative is simply
irresponsible. - 1994
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In a genuine sense we have a question of "who would
you rather trust?" Would you rather trust [the
encryption debate] to the marketplace in which people
will make their own judgments, and you won't be able
to conduct wiretaps against people who misuse it, or are
you prepared to trust the democratic institutions and the
checks and balances on power that have worked for our
country by and large over the years? I guess I think that
this debate in the end is between the people who would
rather have some kind of an automatic technological
guarantee against the government misusing their authority
and people who are prepared to trust our institutions to
prevent abuse. Seems to me that the choice of
guaranteeing against government ability ... to conduct
wiretaps ... probably is a choice for anarchy, a choice
for more authority and more opportunity for criminals,
and I don't think that on the whole, looking around
at our society, that we need too many choices of that
kind. - 1995
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