FBI: We're not demanding encryption back doors

Discussions should focus on requiring that communication providers and Web sites have legally mandated procedures to divulge unencrypted data in their possession.

In response to lobbying from the FBI, a House committee in 1997 approved a bill that would have banned the manufacture, distribution, or import of any encryption product that did not include a back door for the federal government.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said that the panel's members received a secret briefing last week from the FBI, but that the bureau should make its arguments in public. "It is critical that we discuss this issue in as public a matter as possible," he said.