It's rare to get a glimpse of the lawmaking mind as it churns policy. But with the help of an unnamed Washington reporter, the public got a look at how two Democratic senators who want to pass a new law on how encryption should be used and regulated think about the issue.
The setting was an informal daily get-together with reporters sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. On Thursday, Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska was on hand to announce he is sponsoring a cryptography-control bill. We pick up the proceedings with a reporter's question to the senators:
How would you define encryption?
Daschle: Encryption is the - and Senator Kerrey can do a lot better job than I can - but my definition of encryption is to create a code by which sensitive information can be protected on the Internet....
Kerrey: Well, I mean, to answer your question, I mean, encryption is - the political equivalent of encryption is you ask me a question, I give you an answer and you don't understand it. I mean, I intentionally garble the answer frequently. I intentionally garble the response so that you can't understand what I'm saying.
And that's - you notice that I've got the ability to do that. I don't always do that, but that's what occurs with digital communication. The message is scrambled in a way that is very difficult to unscramble. And depending upon the power of your computer, you in fact may not be able to unscramble it at all.
