Wiretaps have no such potential for coercive use. The defendant is convicted or freed on the basis of his own, unarguable words. In addition, the world will be a safer place if criminals cannot take advantage of a ubiquitous, standardized encryption infrastructure that is immune from any conceivable law enforcement wiretap. Even if you're worried about illegal government taps, key escrow reinforces the existing requirement that every wiretap and every decryption must be lawfully authorized. The key escrow system means that proof of authority to tap must be certified and audited, so that illegal wiretapping by a rogue prosecutor or police officer is, as a practical matter, impossible.
Unreadable encryption is the key to our future liberty.
Of course there are people who aren't prepared to trust the escrow agents, or the courts that issue warrants, or the officials who oversee the system, or anybody else for that matter. This sort of reasoning is the long-delayed revenge of people who couldn't go to Woodstock because they had too much trig homework. He has been at the NSA since 1992. HotWired , Wired News , HotBot , Wired Magazine online, Suck , LiveWired , Cocktail , The Rough Guide , and NewsBot . Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved.