Real crooks won't use Clipper . They will chose one of the many readily available and virtually unbreakable private alternatives, one without a built in back door. While the Fifth Amendment continues to shield criminal activity this basic protection lasted only 124 years before it was breached in the economic realm. The Sixteenth Amendment, passed in 1913 to empower the federal government to collect a tax on incomes, has since fueled the growth of a bloated leviathan, unleashing unchecked inquisitorial powers that are used to pry into the most intimate details of our lives. Not too long after our incomes follow our economic activity into Cyberspace this inquisition is going to end.
Encryption is to the Information Revolution what the Atlantic Ocean was to the American Revolution.
It will render tax authorities as impotent in projecting their power as the ocean crossing did to King George. Look around you. Most mega-corporations owe their size not to their efficiency and flexibility but to their ability to curry political favor. If you are in doubt ask yourself why the biggest political contributors are the most heavily regulated companies. Because the tools used to create a symbiotic relationship between large corporations and the State will no longer be effective when turned against the entrepreneurs, the virtual corporations, and the fluid adhocracies that will thrive on the net.