US Customs agents in Washington's Dulles Airport weren't looking for drugs when they grabbed Philip Zimmermann at the international arrivals gate last November. But they detained him and searched his bags twice.
Had Zimmermann been leaving the States and carrying any floppies containing PGP, the encryption program he wrote to keep e-mail and other files safe from snoops, he could have been arrested on federal charges of exporting weapons without a license. Fortunately, he was returning, and importing them isn't illegal. But the Feds got their chance to interrogate him without the presence of his attorney. He was clean, and they let him go, but not without a warning that he can expect to enjoy the same treatment each time he reenters the country.
If he wasn't smuggling software, then why was he in Europe? To tell the world how to use PGP. "I just got back from Romania and Hungary," said Zimmermann, a few days after his interrogation. "I don't have to explain to Eastern Europeans why it is important for the government not to get too powerful."
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