Not sure it makes any difference. There are plenty of terrorists already in the country who would have access to PGP and other encryption techniques.
How come Al Qaeda gets to be encrypted and we don’t.
What this really shows is that we cannot lose this war. The decentralization of technology will continue apace and we cannot afford to lose and allow it to used against us terrorists sponsored by Ayatollahs and Saudi princes.
You said — “Not sure it makes any difference. There are plenty of terrorists already in the country who would have access to PGP and other encryption techniques.”
No, it doesn’t make any difference, because PGP was “international” years ago and the U.S. Government could not stop it from going international. Just read up on Phil Zimmerman and what he went through in order to *make sure* that PGP went “international”.
There was nothing at all that the U.S. government could do to stop it. And even it the U.S. had made draconian laws preventing any exports and jailing thousands of people — does that mean that the U.S. Government thinks that the only programmers that exist (for making encryption program) are in the U.S. (and don’t exist in any other country in the world)?
It’s ludicrous to think that the U.S. could stop something like that, which other countries and other programmers are fully capable of making...
Regards,
Star Traveler