Biden never banned encryption; the only statute I can find that bears his name says the opposite.
I'm interested in the Ashcroft and Kerry references you're thinking of. Were they contemporaneous, or from the late '90s? In the late 1990s, there was a sharp shift towards liberalizing crypto, with competing bills introduced in the House and Senate by both parties. The argument shifted from "will we mandate key escrow for the general public" to "is it OK for us to provide a facility to mandate key escrow for systems sold to the federal government should we want to do so in the future".
You're right to call me out on one thing: "the entire government" was imprecise wording. I should have said "the Democratic administration, the preceding Republican administration, and prominent members of both the Senate and the House on both sides of the aisle".
I'm interested in the Ashcroft and Kerry references you're thinking of. Were they contemporaneous, or from the late '90s? In the late 1990s, there was a sharp shift towards liberalizing crypto, with competing bills introduced in the House and Senate by both parties. The argument shifted from "will we mandate key escrow for the general public" to "is it OK for us to provide a facility to mandate key escrow for systems sold to the federal government should we want to do so in the future".
You're right to call me out on one thing: "the entire government" was imprecise wording. I should have said "the Democratic administration, the preceding Republican administration, and prominent members of both the Senate and the House on both sides of the aisle".