re clipper considered harmful in article optilink com brad optilink com brad yearwood writes finally because there is essentially no possibility of intercepting in realtime the scrutable content of communications between stolen instruments there will exist strong motivation to record and archive all communications in the network for ex post facto scrutiny once some criminal act is discovered and the instruments involved have been identified it seems likely to me that that a large subset of encrypted communications would be archived to tape so they could be read if sometime in the future probable cause arises and a warrant is obtained i can even imagine this being found legal and constitutional since nothing is actually listened to until a valid warrant is issued and the keys are obtained imagine archiving all pay phone conversations so if someone turns out to be a drug dealer you can listen to all their past drug deals and archive calls to from suspected mafia members potential terrorists radicals etc imagine the convenience for the police of being able to get a warrant now and listening to all the calls the world trade center bombers made in the past year since archiving would be such a powerful tool and so easy to do why wouldn t it happen ken shirriff shirriff sprite berkeley edu
