https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-encryption-wars-are-back-but-in-disguise/

Twenty-five years ago the technology industry was at a crossroads that could have resulted in a far different world from the one we see today. The Clinton administration was pushing industry to install the “Clipper chip” in all communications devices. This “key escrow” system would have given law enforcement a backdoor to bypass encryption whenever they felt the need. The proposal would have put U.S. tech companies at a serious disadvantage because foreign products without backdoors would have been much more attractive to the market. It is possible internet commerce would not have taken off as it has and that Google, Apple and Facebook would not be the powerhouses they are today. More broadly, without strong encryption the unprecedented growth in the range of areas to which the internet is applied would not have been possible.


The key escrow proposal withered away after several years of heated debate, but the idea has persisted and has cropped up again recently. It started in the spring of 2019 when Facebook announced plans to extend end-to-end encryption by default, already in WhatsApp, across all its platforms. That June, Attorney General William Barr argued that advanced encryption impedes criminal investigations and urged “lawful access” to consumer devices.