Testimony of Philip R. Zimmermann
The testimony of Philip R. Zimmermann provides a logical answer to this question that the US Attorney is overreacted to this case. I’ve read all the documents and conclude that Philip was on point in his testimony. He justified his position to members of the committee. I think the US attorney overreacted because of the breakthrough of public-key encryption software to protect online Emails. The software shared worldwide to help people or email users to protect their identities and email messages from unauthorized access, whether of some unknown person or of government agencies itself.
Since the world sees the emergence of innovation and advancement where everything whether a massive software or a malware launched across the world to use it for their benefit, then there could be two reasons for that reaction by the government towards Philip R. Zimmermann. The first reason is that the government does not want Philip to share that security-key in free to people across the world. They might have some considerations of economic gain for the introduction of public-key encryption software. As Philip shared that software free of cost, thus, they said he break laws. In his testimony, he said that companies need to develop strong cryptographies to keep governments out of their personal data/information shared through electronic devices. And the second reason could be that the government might want to intervene or fetch all information sent through emails.
In the new world, knowledge of software and cryptographies has become so diverse and universal; everyone can approach and use this software without having strict restrictions. Yes, there are some ethics to use this software, but it didn’t mean that the one who shared a popular and much acceptable software with the world should be kept under criminal investigation, which makes no sense for me. The definition of the arms export control act says that all rights of export and imports of defense services and defense articles are reserved for the President. But this act didn’t come under cyber laws that address all other computer/software laws. On this ground, I would say that US attorney overreacted to this case (Philip Zimmermann, 1996).
References
Philip Zimmermann. (1996). http://www.mit.edu/~prz/EN/testimony/index.html.