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On one side of the debate are those agencies charged with defending America from crime, terrorism, and external threat, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, and the Department of Justice. These powerful agencies, in turn, are challenged by advocacy groups and high-technology industries, which place a greater emphasis on individual rights, in particular personal privacy, or corporate profits. The United States Congress may play a major role in determining the balance between the two. There are several powerful agencies which are leading the Administration's effort to control encryption technology. First and foremost among these is the National Security Agency, which for years was the sole controller of strong encryption in the United States. NSA has two primary goals on its agenda. The most overt one is the protection of United States national security, which the NSA does largely with the help of signal intelligence. If terrorists of foreign agents were to obtain and use strong encryption hardware or software, NSA's efforts to learn about and thwart their activities would be considerably more difficult. Indeed, as Marc Rotenberg of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility comments, the continued development of encryption technologies poses one of the most significant challenges the agency has faced during the post-Cold War era. Less obvious but also important is NSA's effort to protect its preeminent role in civilian cryptography. For years, NSA had almost complete control over developments in the encryption field. In recent years, however, this control has begun to erode as private firms and individuals have begun aggressively developing and using encryption technologies. The end of the Cold War and the assignment of responsibility by the Computer Security Act of 1987 for development of federal unclassified computer security standards (including cryptography standards) to NIST has threatened many aspects of NSA's traditional role.
Most other executive agencies and departments involved in the regulation of encryption technology have a similar agenda. That is protecting American citizens from harm and defending their areas of responsibility and influence within the government. For example, the FBI and CIA depend on real-time interception of electronic transactions or electronic transmission of information in order to protect citizens from harm or to apprehend a known criminal. If there was a national kidnapping ring, it would be comforting to know that the government could obtain information from any of their electronic interactions and monitor their activities. The Internet and telecommunications have not only increased the speed and efficiency of business transactions, they have increased the speed and efficiency of criminal activities. By establishing a mandatory public key recovery escrow, the government would be able to monitor and prevent many organized crimes over the internet. However, the privacy of every single individual using the Internet is then open to governmental access. As proposed by the Clinton Administration and current legislation, the government or a trusted third party would have access to all of an individual's electronic interactions or stored files. Many professional hackers could break these mandatory public codes and therefore subject the Internet to even more risk. Click Here to see more about hacking DES. Individual rights advocacy groups such as Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) assert that government is too intrusive and needs to be restrained in having access to citizens interactions.
It is also comforting that Saddam Hussein, or other terrorists being monitored by the CIA do not have free instant access to America's best encryption technology. At the same time, current export restrictions are causing tremendous inefficiencies in the economy and hampering a U.S. company's participation in the global market for encryption software. Thus U.S. industry leaders oppose any government restrictions or mandates on encryption. Many high-technology industries, particularly software, will place increasing pressure on the government to liberalize restrictions on the use and export of encryption software and hardware.
Congress with it's powers to make laws and oversee the activities of Federal agencies, is a significant factor in this ongoing debate. While the players named so far have their own, narrowly defined agendas, Congress' actions are supposed to pay closer attention to the will of the American people, on whose vote their job depends. This has created a variety of legislation addressing both sides of these issues.
Click Here to view the hardline Stance of Individual Privacy Groups Globally
Click Here to view the National Research Council's In Depth-Review of the future role of Encryption
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