🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov2.084229.1@zodiac.rutgers.edu>, leichter@zodiac.rutgers.edu writes:

> Most of the debate has centered on whether the government should be allowed to
> require access to keys for COMMUNICATION.  Here, it can be hard to see just
> how much need there is, because in fact even today wiretaps are relatively
> rare, and it's difficult to know how important they are.  But there's another
> situation where the case is different:  Encrypted record keeping.
> 
> Imagine that Richard Nixon, in making his tapes, had access to a DAT recorder
> with an encryption chip.  Congress subpeonas the tapes; he delivers tapes that
> sound like white noise.  What are the keys, Mr. Nixon?  No, I won't tell you
> that, Fifth Amendment.
> 
> Or imagine that Ollie North's famous deleted mail messages had been encrypted.
> Or, to take a recent example, that Caspar Weinberger had used a palmtop to
> keep his personal diary, and all entries in it were encrypted.
> 
> All these examples are from the political domain, because it's those cases
> that get wide publicity, so all of you know about them.  But there is nothing
> unique about the political domain. 

On the contrary, this is a fine set of examples of why the public might want
to prevent public servants from encrypting their work, instead of the converse.
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