Posted on 01/17/2006 4:11:58 AM PST by PittsburghAfterDark
Hello, Mr. Gore? Your Clipper Chip Is Calling
“A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government”, declared an outraged Algore on Monday in regards to the liberal media and punditry driven story of President Bush ordering the NSA to “connect the dots” of terrorists and their handlers. So why the outrage over the breaking of law Algore? Certainly didn’t bother you much when your disgraced boss was undergoing impeachment for Nixonian charges.
Easy cheap shot though and not the point of this article.
It seems Algore’s memory on privacy and government interception of private communications is conveniently short and shall we say, incomplete.
In 1993 the Clinton Administration had decided that there was just too much communicating going out there that may or may not be susceptible to government interception. Their solution? Endorsing the mandatory installation of a little gadget known as the Clipper Chip.
Many listeners of G Gordon Liddy’s radio show will remember this little fiasco. The Clipper Chip was designed to provide secure methods of private and business conversations. Unless of course the people that wanted to listen were perceived as enemies of the state and one may wonder the administration itself.
You see, the Clipper Chip was designed by the government, the NSA in particular, and was widely expected to be adopted by all consumer electronics manufacturers. Who had the key? Why the NSA of course and their political masters.
Of course this wasn’t how it was advertised at the time. Keys to Clipper Chips would be “escrowed” or in layman’s terms, put away until needed to crack the device they needed to crack. This device would presumably go in all consumer electronics; computers, phones, fax machines, radio transmitters. In short, every single device used for electronic communications.
Just try and imagine the outrage if it was John Ashcroft and not Janet Reno’s Justice Department that released the following statement, “The Attorney General of the United States, or her representative, shall request manufacturers of communications hardware which incorporates encryption to install the U.S. government-developed key-escrow microcircuits in their products. The fact of law enforcement access to the escrowed keys will not be concealed from the American public.”
You think there was MSM outrage over this release? Hardly. In fact many talk radio shows of the day didn’t even touch the issue, the internet and bloggers were non-existent and it was left to electronics makers to tell the government where to step off.
On February 4, 1994 the following statement was released from Algore’s office on White House stationary; “Our policy is designed to provide better encryption to individuals and businesses while ensuring that the needs of law enforcement and national security are met.” It seems that privacy fears and questions about government overreaching in common carrier interception had no place in the Clinton White House.
This of course should come as no surprise. I just have to wonder if Algore is running around with a Clipper Chip in his cell phone, laptop or on his home or office fax machines and land line telephones.
I’m sure he’d like to be as law and order as he wanted the rest of us to be. So while Algore is out there railing about government privacy threats? Just remember it was his initiative in the Clinton Administration that would have left every single one of us at the whim of government intrusion and made electronic privacy impossible for all but the most technically adept in the population.
False outrage? You decide.
Clinton White House Factsheet on Clipper
Gore Crypto Statement 2/4/94
Aglore?
Good job, Al!!!!
Now go crawl back under your rock.
Al Gore should remember the words; "no controlling legal authority".
Just the usual....albore unhinged. hollyweird ought to make a movie about his speeches.
"Hey, the Democrats are saying that they wouldn't listen in on conversations between Al Qaida and their cohorts in the U.S. even to save American lives. Since the inception of this program there have been zero attacks on U.S. soil. Can we trust the Democrats to protect us?"
That's what I'm hoping anyway.
That was after the rich monks gave all that money to Algore.
Forget about "The Clipper Chip"...Al Gore needs to get back on the mother ship.
a self-cite? that's the redundant ultimate redundancy in redundance.
He's bugging me.
[[“A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government”, declared an outraged Algore on Monday,]]
Oh really Al Gore?? Well where was your outrage, tirades and tempter tantrums when bill clinton broke the law, ummm, 15 or 20 times. You phoney POS.
Ow! Ow! You get the Bad Pun of the Day award!
My brain is aglore this early in the morning. That term, of course, means "addled". Haven't even had a cup of coffee.
So was this algorithm implemented? Latest argument I can find dates to 1996. Aglore, who invented the internet, didn't tell us in his latest Algore (also means "addled") speech.
Algore may be inconsistent, but at least he is consistently inconsistent.
Fairly recently, my niece (high school senior) asked me why there was such an uproar about Clinton having sex when he was president. She said it wasn't illegal. I told her lying under oath is illegal. I guess the Democratic line that having sex in the Oval office is a personal matter still gets through, even today.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.