[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 151 (Wednesday, October 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S12851]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               ENCRYPTION CHALLENGE IN THE NEXT CONGRESS

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, we have made some important advances on 
the encryption issue during this Congress. We held a hearing in the 
Senate Constitution Subcommittee, which pointed out the constitutional 
problems with the Administration's proposed domestic encryption policy 
and put individual privacy rights back into the discussion. More 
recently, as everyone is aware, the Administration has taken a few 
modest steps toward liberalizing its export policy.
  However, we have to be wary of piecemeal approaches to the problem. 
The Administration's decision to relax its export policy helps out big 
businesses with subsidiaries in certain selected countries, but it 
leaves most ordinary consumers out in the cold.
  In the Judiciary Committee, I resisted another piecemeal approach--
making the use of encryption in furtherance of a felony a separate 
crime, without addressing the broader encryption issue. As a former 
Attorney General of Missouri, I am keenly aware of the interests of law 
enforcement in not having encryption unduly hinder law enforcement. On 
the other hand, in my work on the encryption issue, I have come to 
appreciate the concerns of privacy groups who are opposed to this 
proposal. I explored some ways of working this issue out with my 
colleagues in this Congress, but we could not work out an acceptable 
compromise. In the next Congress, I look forward to working with my 
colleagues--on and off the Judiciary Committee--to fashion a 
comprehensive resolution of the encryption issues that balances the 
needs of law enforcement and law-abiding citizens.
  In the next Congress, our goal must be to move beyond such piecemeal 
approaches to find a comprehensive solution to computer privacy issues. 
This will not be easy.
  Twice recently, President Clinton has told high-tech audiences that 
``we've reached broad agreement on encryption policy.'' Unfortunately, 
that is just not true--at least not yet. The Administration's water 
torture approach to encryption--liberalizing export policy drip by 
drip--demonstrates that they do not understand two fundamental 
principles: (1) that robust and reliable encryption is available on the 
world market, and (2) that ordinary Americans should have access to the 
best available encryption to protect their privacy.
  In short, it does us no good to talk about ``broad agreement'' that 
does not actually exist. Instead, we need to work hard to make such 
broad agreement a reality. That is the task for the next Congress, and 
I look forward to working with my colleagues to get the job done.

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