CALEA simply permits the FBI to maintain court-approved access to digital communications and stored data. Another technical challenge called encryption then and now threatens to make court-authorized interception orders a nullity. Robust and commercially available encryption products are proliferating and no legal means has been provided to law enforcement to deal with this problem, as was done by Parliament in the United Kingdom. Terrorists have been able to exploit this huge vulnerability in our public safety matrix.

In 1998, HPSCI adopted a substitute bill to S.909 which effectively addressed all of law enforcement’s public safety and terrorism-related concerns regarding encryption products. Unfortunately, this needed counter-terrorism assistance was not enacted. As we know from Ramzi Yousef's encrypted computer files found in Manila, terrorists are exploiting this technology to defeat our most sophisticated methods to prevent their attacks. I have long said that this unaddressed problem creates a huge vulnerability in our nation's counter-terrorism program. Neither the Patriot Act nor any other likely-to-be-enacted statute even attempts to close this gap. Resolving this issue is critical to homeland security.