This 'so what' attitude is a rather risky attitude to take. It presupposes that government officials and people in positions of power and access will never abuse that power. Who honestly believes that ever single person and employee in our government and law enforcement community is NEVER involved with criminal behavior? It also presupposes that our government as a whole can never be corrupted - which is also a foolish and extremely dangerous notion considering the lessons history already offers us. As for the encription comments - sure the Government doesn't mind us using encription - as long as they've got the Keys. Folks might do well to pay attention to the fact the Government wants control of encription software like PGP keys, and wants limits such as 28 bit encription on publicly available software. It's like having the local police say "Hey, lock your doors, just don't mind that we've got skeleton keys to everything. You'll be *reasonably* safe."

Considering the general trend of the public / votership not to bother involving itself with government affairs in any meaningful way, and the trend of the government to be self serving, who really expects our government never to abuse the public trust? It's one thing to claim that these tools can aid in the fight against crime, it's another to blindly ignore the fact that they can be used to wrongly deprive people of free speech and private communications.

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