On 16 September 1999, the US Attorney-General Janet Reno announced that a new policy on encryption exporting would come into effect in the coming months. The current rules mean that strong encryption cannot be exported outside the US except in limited circumstances. The new rules will remove this bar, except in the case of sales of encryption technology to foreign goverments and militaries. The move has been welcomed by the US IT industry, which has lobbied for a relaxation of the ban for some time, fearing that the rules simply handed a lucrative market opportunity over to non-US companies.
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