
The CLIPPER initiative is an announcement by Clinton that all the 
"secure" voice phones will use the same crypto chip, as a de-facto
government standard.  Problem is, the government is admitting that
they hold the keys to break the code easily, and the Justice department
will be using the keys to listen in on "illegal activities."  Many
people are really scared about such an initiative because it is
a major step towards outlawing real crypto protection on things
like email if you read the press release.  The project was developed
by NSA and given to NIST.  It uses two keys S1 and S2 that the
government claims are needed to break the code.  They claim that
these keys will be handed to two different companies, and when they
get a warrant to do a wiretap (the chip is nicknamed the wiretap chip),
they have to get the keys from both companies.  People have poked holes
through and through the press release official version and shown how
it is nowhere near as nice as it sounds, and I have given the simplified
version.  People over on sci.crypt are really scared about this
proposal it seems.