The prediction, in brief:

“This is going to be our Bay of Pigs.” Trusting the government with your privacy is like having a Peeping Tom install your window blinds.

Predictor: White House official

Prediction, in context:

In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, John Perry Barlow, a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, writes about the U.S. government and its proposed “Clipper” encryption system, quoting an anonymous Clinton administration official:”‘This is going to be our Bay of Pigs,’ one Clinton White House official told me at the time Clipper was introduced, referring to the disastrous plan to invade Cuba that Kennedy inherited from Eisenhower. (Clipper, in case you’re just tuning in, is an encryption chip that the National Security Agency and FBI hope will someday be in every phone and computer in America. It scrambles your communications, making them unintelligible to all but their intended recipients. All, that is, but the government, which would hold the ‘key’ to your chip. The key would separated into two pieces, held in escrow, and joined with the appropriate ‘legal authority.’) Of course, trusting the government with your privacy is like having a Peeping Tom install your window blinds.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Communication

Subtopic: Security/Encryption

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: Jackboots on the Infobahn: Clipper is a Last-Ditch Attempt By the United States, the Last Great Power From the Old Industrial Era, to Establish Imperial Control Over Cyberspace

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.04/privacy.barlow_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney