ernment’s InvolvementGovernment Agencies Guide Encryption DevelopmentIn the early 1970’s the United States set a goal to lead the world in encryption. The United States National Bureau of Standards (NBS) wished to establish a national encryption standard with the hopes that the rest of the world would adopt the standard as well. The NBS sought the advice of private sectors for a proposal for a Data Encryption Standard (DES). As a result, IBM and the National Security Agency (NSA) developed an encryption algorithm, which became a federal standard in 1977 (Huffman 2). Congress wished to limit NSA’s involvement in “. . . developing standards for the civilian communications system,” (EPIC 1). In 1987, as an attempt to limit NSA’s involvement, Congress passed the Computer Security Act. This law granted the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) control of unclassified, non-military computers (Epic/CSA). In spite of this, the Government remained involved in the development of encryption technology. The FBI used Congressional avenues to pave its path.The FBI became concerned with the development of technology such as fiber-optic cabling and digital phone systems for they new this could hinder their ability to use existing analog technology for wiretapping. As a result, it presented the FBI Digital Telephony Proposal. This proposal would require the installation and maintenance of expensive equipment to facilitate wiretaps. Due to the expense, the proposal failed to reach the House floor. In 1994, the proposal re-surfaced as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA); this time the proposal included reimbursement measures for telecommunications providers. The bill “. . . was signed into law in October, 1994, (Huffman 7). The FBI now has the ability to intercept communication that travels across fiber cabling and digital phone systems.CALEA secured the Governments abil...
