Big name computer firms protest Clinton plans for data encryption chip; 'fundamental constitutional rights' must first be carefully considered. (National Security Agency develops 'Clipper Chip')

Software Industry Report, May, 1993

|Fundamental Constitutional Rights'

Must First Be Carefully Considered

The nation's largest computer companies have sent President Clinton a letter protesting administration plans to create a voice and data encryption standard based on a government-developed computer chip.

The mid-May letter is signed by top executives from Apple Computer, AT&T, Digital Equipment, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lotus Development, McCaw Cellular, MCI, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and more than 20 other companies, industry and public interest groups.

As already reported, the White House wants to make the so-called "Clipper Chip" developed by the National Security Agency the new business and government standard for encryption (see Software - Industry Report, May...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.