Note that the term &quot;exceptional access&quot; was originally devised in the CRISIS report from NAS, back in 1996.<p>&gt; Third-party access has many twists and turns. When it is necessary for clarity of exposition or meaning, this report uses the phrase &quot;exceptional access&quot; to stress that the situation is not one that was included within the intended bounds of the original transaction, but is an unusual subsequent event. Exceptional access refers to situations in which an authorized party needs and can obtain the plaintext of encrypted data (for storage or communications). The word &quot;exceptional&quot; is used in contrast to the word &quot;routine&quot; and connotes something unusual about the circumstances under which access is required.<p>The report didn&#x27;t intend to suggest that &quot;exceptional&quot; implied &quot;legally improper&quot; (in fact a subsequent paragraph from the same chapter assumes that government normally has appropriate legal justification for seeking exceptional access).<p>I&#x27;m not sure how that affects your criticism, but I&#x27;d just like to point out that we didn&#x27;t make up this phrase and that we may well be using it correctly in its original sense here. :-)<p>It was apparently also always true in American history that people could use secrecy technologies to try to obscure their communications from any unintended recipients.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vjolt.net&#x2F;vol2&#x2F;issue&#x2F;vol2_art2.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vjolt.net&#x2F;vol2&#x2F;issue&#x2F;vol2_art2.html</a><p>So one could also argue that surveillance proponents are trying to expand government power in unprecedented ways by questioning people&#x27;s right to use technical means to protect the confidentiality of their communications.  (Both things could be true at the same time!)