Too much encryption?

• Author: Suderman, Peter
• Position: Follow-Up

The U.S. government has never cared for digital encryption designed for private use. In the early 1990s, when such technology first became widely available, Washington responded by restricting its sale and distribution abroad and requiring telecommunication companies to structure their products in a way that made federal wiretapping efforts easier.

As Mike Godwin recounted in the May 2000 issue of reason, President Bill Clinton introduced what was dubbed the Clipper Chip program in 1993. Developed under the supervision of the National Security Agency, the chip gave the government a secret "backdoor" that could be used for federal investigations. As Godwin explained, the idea was that "the device would let computer or telephone users encrypt their communications, [but] it would also let the government recover the content of the coded messages."

Digital communication technology has evolved considerably since then, but Washington's response hasn't changed much. In September, Justice Department officials announced that they would press Congress to pass regulations requiring all digital communication providers to alter their systems so they could be wiretapped. If carried out, the initiative would let federal officials with a court order peer into communications carried by popular online services such as Facebook and Skype and via wireless devices such as Blackberries.

Officials claim the law is a...