These particular end users are a specialized market where key recovery solutions may not be appropriate. They are more costly and less efficient than non-escrowed products. There can be long gaps in reception due to the escrow features - sometimes as long as a ten second pause. Continuing current practice is not an open ended approach. The market is moving towards key recovery products and most 56 bit products, particularly software, will be phased out by market forces without new export restrictions.
Market forces are more reliable and more politically stable than new restrictions.
The real question is how can we best help the market transition from non recoverable products to recoverable products in a way that preserves U.S. global leadership in information technology and in building the global information infrastructure. The best outcome for advancing our KMI initiative would be to decide to continue current practice to license, after appropriate review, these non-key recovery products to safe end users. This concerns upgrades that do not enhance a product's encryption capabilities. The same is true for accessories such as hard drives or print facilities. Justice's argument is that this would sustain a system's viability and make the end user less likely to abandon it for a key recovery product.