Should the government have a key to the front door of your house? Should it make the locks easier to pick? After all, if law enforcement doesn’t have access to potential lawbreakers, anti-social activities become more difficult to detect. Dangerous sociopaths can design a weapon of mass destruction or partake of illegal substances in the comfort of their living rooms. Enquiring law enforcement minds would benefit from less tedious restrictions on surveillance, as well as more voluntary cooperation from the American public. True patriots may wish to install government accessible cameras at home to prove that they have nothing to hide.
A national program to store house keys with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and install video cams on household walls isn’t in the cards yet, but the Clinton administration is pushing new invasions of personal privacy in computer data and communications. The FBI wants a key system that would allow the government to read encrypted data and communications, as well as other restrictions on encryption technology. This technology is used to safeguard sensitive data stored on computers or transmitted on the Internet. It is of interest not only to the criminal class, but also those honest citizens who prefer that their credit card numbers and health care records not be readily available on the Net, or are otherwise not as ready to share details about their personal life as Netizens Pamela Anderson Lee and her former husband Tommy Lee.
