"Forget what I said earlier about defending the Constitution."

He really said that?

I heard mentioned that they want computer security companies to provide back doors to their encryption software products. But I thought they already did that in 1996 or 1997?

Nope, they have not, but it was proposed back then.  Some have argued that when NAI purchased PGP (pretty good privacy) it was then backdoored, but no one has ever proven it.  However, some foreign math student did find a pretty big problem with every version made since NAI bought it where you could determine the private key.

Personally, I'm ok with back-doored commercial producst, because I will not be using them.  What I'm worried about is automatic guilt for using non-backdoored encryption software.

God Bless Texas