The Clinton administration continues to play hide-and-seek (SiliconValley.com story) with truth when it comes to export regulation on strong encryption. The latest rules, while clearly a step forward, are plainly designed in part to keep the process as complex and unwieldy as possible.
As Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union, put it in a statement on Thursday, “Now that the Administration has tacitly admitted that it can’t and shouldn’t control the use of encryption, it should have announced a simple deregulation, rather than regulatory maze.”