[Stefan Stackhouse]

In December 1999, the US government abandoned controls on the use of "strong encryption". It was also forced, on commercial grounds, to follow European countries and abandon the demand that encryption be illegal unless escrowed.

Every single story like this seems to include mention of some stupid thing that the US could have done but didn't do or stopped doing sometime between 1993 and 2000. You would think that someone might eventually recognize the significance of those dates.