>There is no evidence I have seen that Clinton has personally done
>anything one way or the other with respect to Clipper. A lot has been
>done in his name, as is standard practice in creating government
>policy. Gore does seem to have been directly involved in some aspects
>of the Clipper developments.
My source was GAO/OSI-94-2 Communications Privacy: Federal Policy and
Actions; this report reviews official statements and actions of civil
servants, for an official briefing to the US legislature. The text
indicates clearly that with NIST having rejected the escrow technology
on the grounds of the key-distribution algorithms being non-public and
should be capable of being implemented [safely] in software, "in April
1983, the President directed NIST [...] to begin writing standards to
facilitate the procurement and the use of the key-escrow technique in
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS (my highlight.)
I also refer you to the White House Press Secretary's Office's
statement of April 16, 1993: "The President announced today a new
initiative...[Clipper]"
In a NIST-available info pack (call Mat Keyman, US 301 975 2758), a Q&A
section states in response to the Q: Whose decision was it to propose
this product?, the A: The [US] National Security Council, the [US]
Justice Dept., [...] This approach has been endorsed by the [US]
President, [US] Vice-President, and appropriate [US] Cabinet
officials.
I also find there is a later interesting question which critiques the Clinton
adminstration's approach to this area with regard to the former policy
of the Bush administration.
It appears that all these cited documents are official information, and
have been subject to official release procedures: the formal documents
are the Presidential Decision Directive, signed April 15, 1993, and the
Presidential Review Directive issued at the same time. Public review
was solicited at the same time; the latter processes are due for
completion around Oct. 1994. PW: The legal instruments used to convey
[US] policy are significant in my judgement.
I see two fundamentals of the policy being: that no new [US] encryption
legistation is required to meet the goals of the KEY-ESCROWED [US]
commerce-oriented policy, and that the adoption of such technology is
in no way mandatory for [US] non-governamental concerns. The concern is
to move forward in telecomms, and preventing 80's style lobby-based
policy lockups hindering economic expansion, be it in global networking
or crypto, or any other telecomms area.