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In 1991, programmer Phil Zimmermann created and published the Pretty Good Privacy encryption software for email and other personal data. His motivation? Delaware senator Joe Biden's Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act. The bill attempted to mandate that all American computer systems be build with a back door for the Feds to read your mail in cleartext. Today, though, Zimmermann is backing the Obama/Biden ticket. "Considering the disastrous erosion in our privacy and civil liberties under the current administration," he wrote to Slashdot, "I feel positively nostalgic about Biden's quaint little non-binding resolution of 1991." Too bad Zimmermann reaches for that old saw, "I was quoted out of context," to imply that he never had any beef with Biden. Must be an election year. Here's Zimmermann's full email.Zimmermann wrote to complain that a long, detailed critique of Biden's record on privacy and copyright issues, by CNET house libertarian Declan McCullagh, might have given some readers the impression that Zimmermann was a Republican or something:

In his 23 August opinion piece in CNet, Declan McCullagh wrote on Joe Biden's suitability as the Democratic VP nominee, Declan quotes me, creating the impression I criticized Biden for some legislation that Biden introduced in 1991. Declan's quote from me is out of context because it does not make it clear that I never mentioned Biden in my original quote at all when I wrote about Senate Bill 266. Second, Declan's quote is drawn from remarks I wrote in 1999. Declan seems to be trying to draft me in his opposition to Biden, and, by extension, makes it seem as if I am against the Democratic ticket. I take issue with this. When someone serves in the Senate for 30 years, we have to judge them by their whole body of work. Much has happened since 1991. I don't know what Biden's position would be today on the issue of encryption, but I would imagine it has changed, because I can't think of any politicians today who would try to roll back our hard-won gains in our right to use strong crypto. In fact, considering the disastrous erosion in our privacy and civil liberties under the current administration, I feel positively nostalgic about Biden's quaint little non-binding resolution of 1991. Declan's article seems to imply that I would prefer McCain over the Democratic ticket. But McCain's stated policies on wiretapping, the Patriot Act and other policies that undermine privacy and civil liberties are a seamless continuation on the current administration's policies.

McCullagh correctly reports that had Biden's legislation passed, Federal agents would today have free access to all encrypted Internet traffic and stored computer data. Also, a 2002 bill by Biden would have made it a Federal crime to, say, build a Windows Media player clone for Linux that replicated the former's copyright-protection mechanism. None of Biden's "pro-RIAA, pro-FBI" legislation, as McCullagh dubbed it, ever passed. That at least makes Biden the less effective of two evils.