The FBI vs. the USA
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is actively pursuing a course to
greatly increase their surveillance ability while restricting privacy-
enhancing technologies such as PGP for normal citizens and residents of
the United States. Below are some frightening, well-documented examples.
If you are a U.S. citizen, please consider writing to your federal
representatives and to the Director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, expressing
your feelings about these proposals. Never before has such a watershed
in surveillance been possible. Never again will we have an opportunity
to guide our government in the right direction.
Documentation of the FBI's plans
Privacy advocates have suspected ("known" would be a better word) that this
is what the FBI and NSA have been up to for a while now, while the government
lies to us. They're still trying, too.
Other Evidence
Just in case you think that it couldn't happen here, consider that fact that
cryptography was already made illegal in France. Yes, a regular old
run-of-the-mill democratic western industrialized country classified
cryptographic software as munitions and forbade its own citizens and
residents to ensure their own privacy.
Interestingly, the government of the USA has also classified cryptography as
munitions and forbids the export of strong crypto, but does not regulate the
use of it within the country. Even more interestingly, according the the
article below, the government of France has given up on the internal use
restriction, allowing residents to freely use cryptography at the same as
as the U.S. government is attempting to ban it. Doesn't it just want to
make you scream?
At Least We're Not France