Perhaps Reno took portions of those documents for her statement, there are several sentences and paragraphs that are almost word for word identical. That said, this legislation does not provide any new authority for law enforcement to be able to obtain useable evidence from criminals. Instead, we will continue to operate under our existing authorities and attempt to meet the threat of the criminal use of encryption. Janet Reno may want us to think that more criminals will use encryption, but the fact is, they already do. If by some miracle gun laws were relaxed to the degree that the encryption export laws are being relaxed, criminals would not rush out and buy more guns.
Criminals are almost the only ones left with guns.
Americans can only use the encryption systems that the government has keys to. Reno's quote clearly states that law enforcement is not going to be provided with any additional authority, but the CESA does grant them permission to access the encrypted information they have already been accessing without proper guidelines. The CESA may be relaxing encryption export laws to benefit commerce, but it is paving the way for unrestricted government access to our digital lives. There were a number of questions asked at the end of the briefing, and the questions themselves were great, but most of the answers given were not very informative. Law enforcement does not have te reveal how they got their information, but they are supposed to get permission before getting it.