Matt Blaze, the AT&T Research scientist who was a chief critic of Clipper, said in an essay this week that: “I believed then, and continue to believe now, that the benefits to our security and freedom of widely available cryptography far, far outweigh the inevitable damage that comes from its use by criminals and terrorists.”
Wrote Blaze: “I believed, and continue to believe, that the arguments against widely available cryptography, while certainly advanced by people of good will, did not hold up against the cold light of reason and were inconsistent with the most basic American values.” [Privacy Digest]