Excerpt from Oversight Review of Research Laboratory Programs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Technology of the Committee on Science, U. S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, Second Session, June 25, 1996

Our efforts in cryptography and particularly encryption receive the most public attention. Although encryption can be used as a cost-effective tool to protect data against unauthorized disclosure, it can also be used to thwart the legitimate missions of law enforcement and national security agencies. We have become involved in this issue because of our legislative mandate to provide agencies with sound security advice. At the same time, we must meet our obligations not to take actions that may harm society.

We work With industry, law enforcement, and security officials to help them in their efforts to develop sound cryptographic techniques that balance these interests. Many of the techniques that we have developed have been voluntarily adopted by private sector organizations. An example is the Data Encryption Standard, which is based on a commercially developed technique and which long ago became a voluntary industry standard for protecting computer information.

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