THE METAPHOR IS THE KEY: CRYPTOGRAPHY,
THE CLIPPER CHIP, AND THE CONSTITUTION

A. Michael Froomkin

Document information and copyright notice

Notes for Part IV, Section A

582. See Bamford, supra note 17, at 357-63 (quoting remarks of the NSA Director Bobby Ray Inman); supra note 162 (collecting articles on governmental attempts to suppress academic speech with arguably harmful consequences). Back to text

583. Vincent Blasi, The Checking Value in First Amendment Theory, 1977 Am. B. Found. Res. J. 523, 525. Back to text

584. On a related point, consider that in colonial times, "nothing even remotely resembling modern law enforcement existed." Carol S. Steiker, Second Thoughts About First Principles, 107 Harv. L. Rev. 820, 824 (1994). Back to text

585. See supra notes 484-92 and accompanying text. Back to text

586. See supra notes 398-402 and accompanying text. Back to text

587. One counterargument contends that the technical change that really matters is that the world is a more dangerous place than ever imagined in 1791. The size and nature of the threat to the nation's existence, including nuclear, chemical, and bacteriological weaponry, as well as systems for their rapid and/or surreptitious delivery, means that national security interests require compromises of some rights that might never have been imagined in 1791. Although this argument is powerful, I think it mistaken for two reasons. First, it understates the degree to which the fledgling United States was at risk from military and economic assault by European powers. The new Constitution was adopted precisely because the country appeared to be falling apart under the Articles of Confederation. The Spanish, French, and British each posed substantial military and economic threats. Second, granting that modern risks include extinction where previously the greatest danger was subjugation, it would take a far more immediate danger than we currently face to make it even worth considering subjecting ourselves to a surveillance state. See generally Oscar H. Gandy, Jr., The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information (1993) (analyzing panoptic thinking by integrating several social science perspectives); Harold Edgar & Benno C. Schmidt, Jr., Curtiss-Wright Comes Home: Executive Power[**PAGE 845**]and National Security Secrecy, 21 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 349 (1986) (discussing the enlarged role of the executive in national security matters). Back to text

588. See, e.g., Frank Odasz, Big Sky Telegraph, 71 Whole Earth Rev. 32, 32 (1991) (describing the use of the Big Sky Telegraph in linking Women's Centers in distant parts of Montana); Graeme Browning, Zapping the Capitol, 43 Nat'l J. 2446, 2446 (1994) (discussing the use of "the worldwide web of computer networks" to lobby Congress); John H. Fund, We Are All Pundits Now, Wall St. J., Nov. 8, 1994, at A22 (reporting on the role of e-mail in the campaign to defeat Speaker of the House Tom Foley in the 1994 elections). Back to text

589. In Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 59 (1924), the Supreme Court held that an open field was not a protected area for Fourth Amendment purposes. This does not detract from the point in the text, which refers to attitudes that long predate both Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), and Hester. The open fields doctrine was restated in Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 176-77 (1984) (finding no Fourth Amendment violation stemming from a search of a field where marijuana was growing), which appears to create a safe harbor for eavesdropping. See Stephen A. Saltzburg, Another Victim of Illegal Narcotics: The Fourth Amendment (As Illustrated by the Open Fields Doctrine), 48 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 1, 25 n.105 (1986) (criticizing Oliver for permitting new means of surveillance that are "used to invade areas which people have traditionally believed were closed to outsiders"). Back to text

590. See supra note 372. Back to text

591. See supra part III.D.2. Back to text

592. Seth F. Kreimer, Sunlight, Secrets, and Scarlet Letters: The Tension Between Privacy and Disclosure in Constitutional Law, 140 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1, 13 (1991). The archetype can be seen as a special type of idealized cognitive model, usually concerning something feared or loved. See Steven L. Winter, The Cognitive Dimension of the Agon Between Legal Power and Narrative Meaning, 87 Mich. L. Rev. 2225, 2233-34 (1989). Like other idealized cognitive models, archetypes serve as reference points used to categorize experiences. Back to text

593. For a discussion on McCarthyism as an archetype, see Kreimer, supra note 592, at 14 (finding that McCarthyism "has achieved the status of a negative archetype in contemporary political discourse . . . as a term of opprobrium, of classic political impropriety"). See generally Robert A. Burt, The Constitution in Conflict (1992) (deriving archetypes implicitly from American constitutional history from the figures [** PAGE 847**]of Hamilton, Madison, and Lincoln). Back to text

594. See generally Herbert J. Storing, What the Anti-Federalists Were for (1981) (explaining the role of the Anti-Federalists and arguing that they should be counted among the Founding Fathers); Herbert J. Storing, The Complete Anti-Federalist (1981). Back to text

595. See, e.g., Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 128 (1942) (holding that Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause to regulate home-grown wheat); United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 113 (1941) (finding that Congress may regulate interstate shipment of goods under Commerce Clause power). Back to text

596. By referring to the paradigmatic citizen, I mean to indicate that where once the free, white, usually property-owning male was the person whose political rights were the subject of rights talk, the pool of relevant rights claimants now has expanded to include all adult residents. Back to text

597. I owe the example to Mark Eckenwiler, Letter to the Editor: This Chip Can "Clip" Americans' Civil Liberties, Nat'l L.J., Aug. 1, 1994, at A18. Back to text

598. Even here, alas, a small qualification may be in order. Five years ago I would have written only slightly less emphatically that a proposal to require that every telephone switching system be modified to make government wiretapping easy would be constitutional, but of course would have no chance of passage. Now this country is committed to paying at least half a billion dollars to make that plan a reality. See supra notes 138, 425 and accompanying text (discussing the Digital Telephony initiative). Back to text

599. It is disturbing to note, however, that most household locks use reproducible patterns. Armed with the serial number, a call to the manufacturer makes it easy to fabricate a duplicate. The keys to most household locks are in effect held in "escrow" by their manufacturers. Back to text

600. George Orwell, 1984 (1948). Back to text

601. A similarly chilling vision is found in Bentham's concept of the Panopticon--although Bentham himself found his vision of pervasive surveillance utopian rather than dystopian. See Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977, at 146-48 (Colin Gordon ed., 1980). The Orwellian archetype also gathers some of its power from the existence of surveillance states such as North Korea, the People's Republic of China (at least in some times and regions), and the former Soviet Union. See David B. Davis, The Fear of Conspiracy 265 (1971) (noting that Americans often find it "easier to blame communist conspirators for every conflict in the world than to study the origins and complexities of civil [strife]"). Orwell's 1984 is powerful because it rings too true. Back to text

602. See, e.g., Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 2882 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (stating that the effect of Roe's sudden elimination of abortion's moral stigma from the minds of many is "nothing less than Orwellian"); Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652, 679 (1990) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (describing a state law that prohibits the Chamber of Commerce from advertising support for political candidates as Orwellian); County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573, 678 (1989) (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in[**PAGE 849**]part) (describing as Orwellian the Court's screening out of religious symbols from public displays); Florida v. Riley, 488 U.S. 445, 466 (1989) (Brennan, J., dissenting) (comparing the Court's allowance of police surveillance from aircraft to a passage from Orwell's 1984). Back to text

603. See supra note 416 (describing popular opposition to Clipper). But see supra note 138 (describing the Digital Telephony initiative). Back to text

604. See Letter from Ron Rivest, E.S. Webster Professor of Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to Dorothy E. Denning, Professor and Chair, Computer Sciences Department, Georgetown University 1 (Feb. 25, 1994) (on file with author) ("There are all kinds of wonderfully stupid things one could do with modern technology that could `help' law enforcement. But merely being of assistance to law enforcement doesn't make a proposal a good thing; many such ideas are objectionable and unacceptable because of the unreasonably large cost/benefit ratio (real or psychological cost)."). Back to text

605. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring) (contending that Fourth Amendment jurisprudence should accommodate contemporary standards of reasonable privacy). Back to text

606. See, e.g., William N. Eskridge, Jr., Dynamic Statutory Interpretation, 135 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1479, 1479 (1987) (noting that the Constitution, like common law, is interpreted dynamically). Back to text

607. See supra note 77. Back to text

608. There are, of course, magnificent examples of executive and judicial resistance to security paranoia. See, e.g., New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 718-19 (1971) (allowing a newspaper to publish the contents of classified documents); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 448 (1969) (striking down Ohio's criminal[**PAGE 850**]syndicalism statute); Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116, 130 (1958) (holding that passports cannot be denied on the basis of past or present membership in the Communist party). It was resistance by the Department of the Army--in the executive branch--that triggered the fall of McCarthy. See Richard M. Fried, Men Against McCarthy 282 (1976) (describing climatic moment of Army-McCarthy hearings). Back to text

609. Edgar & Schmidt, supra note 587, at 349. Back to text

610. In fact, the worry has deep English roots, even if these are sometimes exaggerated. See Francis B. Sayre, Criminal Conspiracy, 35 Harv. L. Rev. 393, 397 (1922) (discussing the period between the reigns of Edward III and Elizabeth I, during which a number of statutes were passed to suppress combinations for various specific purposes, such as treasonable designs, breaches of the peace, raising prices, and the like); Developments in the Law--Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv. L. Rev. 920, 922-23 (1959) (discussing the conspiracy indictment). The first conspiracy statutes, which defined the crime in narrow terms, were enacted around 1300 in the reign of Edward I. See Wayne R. LaFave & Austin W. Scott, Jr., Criminal Law 525 (2d ed. 1986). Back to text

611. See supra note 416 and accompanying text. Back to text

612. In fact, wartime has often provided the impetus for U.S. government censorship of communications between the United States and foreign countries. See, e.g., Exec. Order No. 8985 (Dec. 19, 1941), reprinted in 3 C.F.R. 1047 (1938-1943) (establishing the Office of Censorship to censor, at the "absolute discretion" of the Director, "mail, cable, radio, or other means of transmission" to or from other countries), revoked Exec. Order No. 9631 (Sept. 28, 1945), reprinted in 3 C.F.R. 435 (1943-1948) (abolishing the Office of Censorship); see also Matthew J. Jacobs, Assessing the Constitutionality of Press Restrictions in the Persian Gulf War, 44 Stan. L. Rev. 675, 679-86 (1992) (outlining the history of U.S. wartime battle-zone censorship).

The World War II domestic censorship regulations required that all written[**PAGE 851**]messages--including those hand-carried--be passed to a censor. See U.S. Censorship Regulations, 32 C.F.R. § 1801.3 (1945). Letters from the United States to foreign countries or U.S. possessions were to be written "in English, if possible" but if written in another language then "the name of the language used should be written in English on the face of the envelope." Id. § 1801.21(b). Cables and radio traffic were permitted only in English, French, Portuguese, or Spanish without special authorization. See id. § 1801.48.

Letters employing codes and ciphers were specifically prohibited unless authorized. See id. § 1891.22. Cable transmissions could use any one of nine specified commercial codes, but private codes required a special license from the Department of Censorship. Applicants for these licenses were required to provide 15 copies of their code with the application. See id. § 1801.49.

Telephone calls to Mexico were permitted to be in Spanish, while French was allowed in calls to Canada. Radiotelephones could use English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese "except in the event that translators are not available at the censorship point." Id. § 1801.74. Anonymous international calls were prohibited. All callers had to identify themselves to the censors in advance. See id. § 1801.71. Callers from hotels had to be identified by the management, whereas calls from pay phones were banned. See id. §§ 1801.72-.73. Back to text

613. See Robert S. Levine, Conspiracy and Romance 5 (1989) (describing various fears of conspiracy in early America); Paul Marcus, Criminal Conspiracy Law: Time to Turn Back from an Ever Expanding, Ever More Troubling Area, 1 Wm. & Mary BillRts. J. 1, 3-4 (1992) (discussing the generally accepted notion that consipracy is punished because joint action is more dangerous than individual action). Webster's defines conspiracy as "[a]n agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action." Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary 302 (1983). Back to text

614. See Davis, supra note 601, at xiii ("If the United States has enjoyed uncommon security from the time of independence, the Americans have also been subjected to continual alarms and warnings of imminent catastrophe."). Back to text

615. Id. at xvi. Back to text

616. See Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, in The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays 3, 6-7 (1965) (noting that "Americans have no monopoly on the gift for paranoid improvisation"). Back to text

617. Davis, supra note 601, at xiii. Back to text

618. See Levine, supra note 613, at 6-8 (arguing that conspiratorial fears helped New England colonists to define and create communities); Perry Miller, The New England Mind: From Colony to Province 395 (1953). Back to text

619. See generally Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution 95, 144-159 (1967) (arguing that the sentiment that the American colonists were faced with a conspiracy to deprive them of their freedom had deep roots in Anglo-American political culture predating the events of the struggle with England); Gordon S. Wood, Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in the Eighteenth Century, 39 Wm. & Mary Q. 411 (1982) (discussing the prevalence of conspiratorial fears in colonial America). Back to text

620. George Washington, Farewell Address (1796), in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 205, 207 (James D. Richardson ed., 1897). Back to text

621. See Davis, supra note 601, at 68 (pointing to anti-Catholic writers who observed that the "key to Catholic strategy" was the maxim "`[d]ivide and conquer,'" by which Catholics supposedly wished to "keep the diverse groups and interests of society from fusing into `a bona fide American character'"); Washington, supra note 620, at 207 (warning of the dangers of factions). Back to text

622. Peter Amazeen, The Bavarian Illuminati Scare 3 (1988) (unpublished B.A. thesis, Harvard University); see also Vernon Stauffer, New England and the Bavarian Illuminati 229-43 (1918) (noting that the panic, which lasted almost two years, was touched off by a sermon given by Reverend Jedeidiah Morse on May 9, 1798, based on his reading of John Robison's 1797 book, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe). Back to text

623. See Davis, supra note 601, at 35. Back to text

624. See id. at 36. For a discussion of the Alien and Sedition Acts, see supra note 75 and accompanying text. Back to text

625. Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War 379 (1957) (quoting President Jackson); see also id. at 395-96, 405-09 (describing the various evils of the Bank as perceived by Jacksonians). Back to text

626. See David B. Davis, Some Themes of Countersubversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature, 47 Miss. Valley Hist. Rev. 205 (1960), reprinted in Davis, supra note 601, at 9, 10-11. Fear of Freemasons gave rise to a major political party, the anti-Masonic party. Back to text

627. See id. at 14 (citing Richard Rush for the idea that "[o]f all governments . . . ours was the one with the most to fear from secret societies, since popular sovereignty by its very nature required perfect freedom of public inquiry and judgment"). Back to text

628. See David B. Davis, The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style 62-86 (1969) (describing various formulations of the "Slave Power" thesis). Back to text

629. Jacob Epstein, The Great Conspiracy Trial 5-7 (1970). Back to text

630. See Davis, supra note 601, at 153. Back to text

631. See, e.g., Robert M. La Follette, A Small Group of Men Hold in Their Hands the Business of This Country, 42 Cong. Rec. 3434-36, 3450-51 (1908), reprinted in Davis, supra note 601, at 200. Consider too this lawyer's view of the danger:>

We have heard much of the dangers of corporations in late years; but, while our publicists had hardly whetted their swords to meet this question, we are confronted with a new monster a thousand times more terrible. Every student knows how corporations have grown from a monastic institution to the predominance they now occupy in the business world; but American ingenuity has invented a legal machine which may swallow a[**PAGE 855**]hundred corporations or a hundred thousand individuals; and then, with all the corporate irresponsibility, their united power be stored, like a dynamo, in portable compass, and wielded by one or two men. Not even amenable to the restraints of corporation law, these "trusts" may realize the Satanic ambition,--infinite and irresponsible power free of check or conscience.

632. See Davis, supra note 601, at 205-10 ("The years from 1917 to 1921 are probably unmatched in American history for popular hysteria, xenophobia, and paranoid suspicion."). At its peak in 1924, the Ku Klux Klan, which blended nativisism with its anti-Black, -Catholic, and -Jewish ideology, had about 4.5 million members. See id. at 215. Back to text

633. See generally David M. Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy (1983) (tracing Senator McCarthy's life and political career). Back to text

634. See generally Harry Kalven, Jr., A Worthy Tradition: Freedom of Speech in America 340-67 (1988) (discussing Supreme Court decisions regarding loyalty oaths). Back to text

635. See, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969) (per curiam) (reformu-lating the test first outlined in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 51 (1919), to require objectively inciting language in a context that makes it likely to produce direct lawless behavior in order to regulate speech); Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 516-17 (1951) (upholding a conviction under the Smith Act for the mere advocacy of Communism); Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 51 (1919) (creating the "clear and present danger" test for any attempted regulation of speech). See generally Thomas I. Emerson, Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment (1963) (tracing the Supreme Court's development of jurisprudence protecting freedom of expression); Note, Conspiracy and the First Amendment, 79 Yale L.J. 872 (1970) (discussing the conflict between conspiracy law and First Amendment rights). Back to text

636. 341 U.S. 494, 516-17 (1951) (upholding petitioner's conviction under the Smith Act despite the absence of evidence of any overt act other than the advocacy of Communism); cf. 3 Ronald D. Rotunda et al., Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure § 20.14, at 56 (1986) (attributing Dennis to the Supreme Court's bowing to the "tone of the times . . . as it managed to avoid direct confrontation" with Congress and the Executive). Back to text

637. Martin M. Shapiro, Freedom of Speech: The Supreme Court and Judicial Review 65 (1966). Back to text

638. See, e.g., Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105, 109 (1973) (per curiam) (emphasizing [**page 856**]the requirement that speech must be "intended to produce, and likely to produce, imminent disorder" to be punished by the state); Brandenburg, 396 U.S. at 447 (reformulating Schenck to require objectively inciting language in a context that makes it likely to produce direct lawless behavior in order to regulate speech). See generally Lee C. Bollinger, The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech in America (1986) (arguing that over the past few decades freedom of speech has developed a new significance that helps to account for the extremes to which the principle has been taken). Back to text

639. See David Yallop, Tracking the Jackal: The Search for Carlos, the World's Most Wanted Man (1993); see also Claire Sterling, The Terror Network 129-46 (1981) (tracing the career of Carlos the Jackal). Back to text

640. "Big Brother is dead. The only serious likelihood of his resurrection lies in reaction to the chaos and disintegration" that might be caused by "[t]errorists with secure phones . . . [who] could bring down not just a few buildings but large sections of a modern economy." Nicholas Wade, Method and Madness: Little Brother, N.Y. Times, Sept. 4, 1994, § 6 (Magazine), at 23. Back to text

641. Steven B. Duke & Albert C. Gross, America's Longest War: Rethinking Our Tragic Crusade Against Drugs at xv (1993). Back to text

642. Diane-Michele Krasnow, To Stop the Scourge: The Supreme Court's Approach to the War on Drugs, 19 Am. J. Crim. L. 219, 224 (1992) (discussing Supreme Court cases dealing with the "War on Drugs" in relation to the Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments). Back to text

643. Sandra R. Acosta, Imposing the Death Penalty upon Drug Kingpins, 27 Harv. J. on Legis. 596, 596 (1990) (quoting Representative James A. Traficant, a Democrat from Ohio). Back to text

644. Krasnow, supra note 642, at 221 n.3. Back to text

645. See Pub. L. No. 91-513, tit. II, § 408, 84 Stat. 1236, 1265 (1970) (codified as amended at 21 U.S.C. § 848 (1988 & Supp. V 1993)). A person engages in a continuing criminal enterprise if she "occupies a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management" of five or more persons who act feloniously, in concert, to violate drug laws. 21 U.S.C. § 848(c)(2)(A) (1988). Back to text

646. See Pub. L. No. 100-690, tit. VII, § 7001, 102 Stat. 4181, 4387 (1988) (codified as amended at 21 U.S.C. § 848 (1988 & Supp. V 1993)) (making the death penalty applicable to convictions for killings committed during illicit drug-related activity). Back to text

647. See Pub. L. No. 91-513, tit. II, § 406, 84 Stat. 1236, 1265 (1970) (codified as amended at 21 U.S.C. § 846 (1988)). Back to text

648. See Michael Isikoff, Federal Study Shocks Drug Experts: "Casual" Use of Pot, Cocaine Plummets, but Coke Addiction Rises, Sacramento Bee, Aug. 1, 1989, at A1, A12 (noting that casual use of marijuana and cocaine fell from 23 million people in 1985 to 14.5 million in 1988); see also Randy E. Barnett, Bad Trip: Drug Prohibition and the [**PAGE 858**]Weakness of Public Policy, 103 Yale L.J. 2593, 2613 n.65 (1994) (book review of Duke & Gross, supra note 641). Back to text

649. See Duke & Gross, supra note 641, at 160-61 (discussing the social costs of drug prohibition); Barnett, supra note 648, at 2610-14 (same). Back to text

650. See Barnett, supra note 648, at 2613 (noting that demonization is made easier by the relatively small number of drug users). Back to text

651. Duke & Gross, supra note 641, at 107. Back to text

652. Cf. Barnett, supra note 648, at 2612 (describing the view of some commentators that police are given so much deference in searching and arresting drug suspects that there is a de facto "drug exception" to the Bill of Rights). Back to text

653. See Wiretap Report, supra note 145, at 4. Back to text

654. See Cornish & Louria, supra note 514, at 95 (discussing the effects that mass drug testing will have on our culture by examining employment drug testing as a means of surveillance). The authors report that mass drug testing entails:>

(1) Fourth Amendment tolerance of systematic preventive searches; (2) increased use of biochemical surveillance as a means of monitoring and deterring undesired behavior; (3) increased use of the workplace and economic sanctions as a tool of regulating undesirable behavior; (4) privatization of traditional law enforcement functions; (5) shrinkage of our expectations of personal privacy; (6) increased use of "profiles"; (7) erosion of the presumption of innocence; and (8) erosion of dignity and autonomy.

655. United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 704 n.5 (1983). Back to text

656. See Krasnow, supra note 642, at 240; see also Silas J. Wasserstrom, The Incredible Shrinking Fourth Amendment, 21 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 257, 264 (1984) (arguing that the Court has not only weakened the warrant and probable cause requirements, but has also avoided them by expanding Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), and contracting the definition of a search); Steven Wisotsky, Crackdown: The Emerging "Drug Exception" to the Bill of Rights, 38 Hastings L.J. 889, 907 (1987) (noting that "[i]n recent years . . . the courts have almost always upheld the government" in search and seizure cases). Back to text

657. 277 U.S. 438 (1928). Back to text

658. James B. White, Judicial Criticism, 20 Ga. L. Rev. 835, 854 (1986). Back to text

659. See id. (arguing that Taft's opinion is drafted to evoke a "sense that the fourth amendment has nothing to do with what is really going on in the case"). Back to text

660. Another possible trigger might be the use of cryptography to hide a child pornography ring. For an example of the likely reaction, see generally John C. Scheller, Note, PC Peep Show: Computers, Privacy, and Child Pornography, 27 J. Marshall L. Rev. 989 (1994). Back to text