Companies like mine have worked hard to develop technological solutions that address these concerns, providing both individuals and businesses with the tools needed to assure their privacy. Such efforts help promote a secure online environment and improve user confidence, helping the vibrant electronic commerce market continue to grow. The current policy of restricting encryption exports is, I respectfully submit, outdated and counterproductive. The Administration's approach to encryption exports, like others before it, has sought to balance the needs of law enforcement and national security with the needs of Internet users, but instead has only created a situation in which U.S. industry is at a competitive disadvantage to its foreign counterparts, where online communications and transactions may remain vulnerable, where users do not have robust tools to protect their privacy and that ultimately threatens to undermine our technological leadership in this critical area. Let me address each of these points in some more detail.
Current policy is outdated.
The current administration policy has evolved from an era in which encryption was regulated as a munition. Encryption products were largely used to provide a level of secrecy for electronic data and communications. Not widely available, export restrictions on encryption and related products could be relatively effective in limiting the spread of these products around the world. With the growth of electronic networks, though, the effectiveness of restrictions is seriously compromised. Digital networks cross national borders and reach around the globe.