Smoke, mirrors, and FUD (Score 1)

The reintroduction of this bill is not about doing The Right Thing and finally removing the biggest hurdle facing e-commerce, it's about electioneering. The only reason it passed the House is because the Democrats don't want to hand the Republicans the anti-technology brick that will later be hurled at their heads.

If we want the legally recognized ability to execute binding contracts via the internet, we must keep pounding on Congress until they can come up with a decent bill and the support needed to override any presidential veto. This one will surely not make it past Clinton's desk.

In order to create solid digital signatures, we must first have strong encryption -- of course, privacy is a threat to our national security, because terrorists might use it to discuss their plans to build weapons of mass destruction. Yeah, yeah, that's it. There's no way that a terrorist seeking to build a thermonuclear device is going to risk being busted for exporting encryption software.