but yours” (Laberis). You may be planning a political campaign, discussing our taxes, or having an illicit affair. Or you may be doing something that you feel shouldn't be illegal, but it is. Whatever it is, you don't want your private electronic mail or confidential documents read by anyone else. There's nothing wrong with asserting your privacy. Perhaps you are not really concerned about encrypting your e-mail because you believe that you have nothing to hide. I mean you haven’t broken the law in any way, right? Well then why not just write letters on postcards instead of sealed away in envelopes? Why not submit to drug testing on demand? Why require a warrant for police searches of your house? Do law-abiding citizens have any need to encrypt their e-mail? What if everyone believed those law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail for the simple reason that you have nothing to hide? Just because you haven’t done anything wrong, doesn’t mean that you want the whole world to have access to your letters or e-mail. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their e-mail, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their e-mail privacy with encryption. “Think of it as a form of solidarity” (Zimmerman). Until the development of the Internet, the U.S. government controlled most new encryption techniques. With the development of faster home computers and a worldwide web, the government no longer holds control over encryption. New algorithms have been discovered that are reportedly unable to be cracked, even by the FBI and the NSA. This is a major concern to the government because they want to maintain the ability to conduct wiretaps and other forms of electronic surveillance into the digital age. Pretty Good PrivacyTo stop the spread of data encryption software, the U.S. government has imposed very strict laws on its exportation. On...
