Second, service industries will be harmed. Service industries that cannot offer security to their customers will lose customers to competitors abroad. Patent attorneys, brokers, traders, and all those who must handle valuable, confidential information are at a significant disadvantage if they cannot offer secure information when international competitors can. Third, American companies which are subject to economic espionage will be harmed. Fourth, not only items of financial value, such as stocks and credit cards numbers, but also items of critical safety value, such as medical records and devices, will be connected electronically.
Cryptography is the only available tool to secure that information at every stage.
Cryptographic systems with escrowed keys are, by definition, not as secure as those without escrow. Building an information infrastructure with purposefully weak security will not serve the interests of any segment of America, except perhaps the criminals, who will benefit from the weakened security, and then order secure cryptography from abroad. Siemens-Nixdorf, Brokat, and Expresso are all examples of popular European technology that competes with American products. The American dominance of the computer security market was once an argument for limiting exports of cryptography. Because of export controls, this dominance is a thing of the past.