Encryption’s Importance to Economic and Infrastructure Security
F. Lynn McNulty · Duke Law Scholarship Repository (Duke University) · 1999
The national and societal view of the role of encryption will be one of the defining issues for our culture in the twenty-first century. Encryption is cited by Michael Baum, chairman of the Information Security Committee of the American Bar Association, as “an enabling technology that provides companies, their business partners, customers and end users with the ability to get the information and service they need much faster and more securely.” Ubiquitous digital communications will result in either a secure environment to conduct personal affairs and electronic commerce or a Kafkaesque world laid bare by digital fingerprints indicating our every transaction and thoughts. The information age has brought to light many important issues: protection of privacy, infrastructure protection, law enforcement, national security, and economic competitiveness. In a democracy, it is important to have a public debate on these issues and to ensure that our laws adequately address the issue of cryptography to carry us forward into the twenty-first century.