Clipper was horrible, that said:

John Kerry and John Ashcroft were two of the most prominent opponents of clipper. It is dishonest and inaccurate to claim that the Republicans were against it and the Democrats were for it, both sides were split.

Similarly, it's a bit of a reach to claim that "the Clinton dynasty" tried to mandate usage. The NSA offered the chip without royalties, and Bill Clinton endorsed it and proposed it be added to the NIST crypto standards. It was a strong nudge to make it available for free; but it never really approached the level of an attempted mandate.

Clipper was a horrible horrible idea; and there were (and still are) members of both parties who think that these sort of backdoored crypto schemes are a good idea. Clipper (and similarly flawed proposals) don't typically originate from a politician; they typically originate from the military-industrial complex and are expressed through a politician.

Partisans always have trouble remembering history though... they forget when "their side" does wrong, but they remember clearly the wrongs of the "other" side. And vice versa for good things.

During the 90's I started off as a Clinton-supporting democrat. At that time, support for encryption was primarily a position held by the "black helicopter" crowd. ("Black helicopters" refers to allegedly paranoid fantasies by right wing militias that federal agents will come for them in black helicopters.)

Note that I'm not attempting to promote any particular party - note that I said the folks who promote encryption don't really exist anymore.

> FYI, the primary political folks promoting encryption were small government, libertarian republicans. (These folks mostly don't exist anymore.)

We exist.

More of us though are handing in our Republican membership cards. If Trump wins the nomination, I'm done with the Republican party.

I hear John McAfee is running for the Libertarian party ticket? That might be fun.

If John gets the nomination, it might be entertaining, but would be another example of the LP shooting themselves in the foot (he's great guy, but not a politician). This election cycle is the best chance they've had to date to become a major party, and I hope they pick someone that at least looks and acts mainstream so they get TV airtime (while keeping LP culture close to their heart)

How are the Clinton's a Dynasty, if only one of them has been President?

When people talked about the Dynasty candidate I assumed they were talking about Jeb! (please clap).

President, Governor, Senator, Secretary. For decades in national politics. That's a dynasty.

I disagree. Four decades isn't that much, given it's totally achievable for one person to spend that much time in public office. Bernie Sanders has 35.