Smith is a co-sponsor of the SAFE Act, co-sponsored by Representatives Goodlatte (R-Virginia) and Lofgren (D-California).

Proponents of the current export restrictions, including FBI Director Louis Freeh, argue that it is necessary to maintain national security. “Many of my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee want to keep the export ban intact, because they fear that international criminals and terrorists will get their hands on encryption technology and cripple our efforts to combat international terrorism,” Smith explained. “If our export ban actually kept the technology away from criminals, that would make sense. But that’s not the case — the encryption technology is still available to whoever wants it, but U.S. firms can’t sell it.”

Smith says that relaxing export restrictions will not threaten national security. “The technology has already proliferated throughout the world,” he said. “Our export restrictions are not protecting our national security, they’re simply giving foreign software companies a chance to capture the global encryption technology market.”

Smith argues that current policy is the real threat to U.S. national security. “Our self-imposed ban on encryption exports is disadvantaging U.S. software companies and threatening our competitiveness in this emerging new technology,” said Smith. “The real threat to our national security would be for the United States to lose its advantage in top-of-the-line technologies such as encryption. If we continue tying the hands of U.S. firms and conceding market share to foreign companies, that will be the result.”

Other countries either have much looser restrictions on encryption technology or no restrictions at all. Canada has allowed a company to export its encryption software, and it sells 128-bit encryption for less than fifty dollars. Encryption software can also be easily downloaded from the Internet.

Encryption uses mathematical algorithms to scramble information, like an e-mail message or financial transactions, as it is sent from one computer to another. Without the proper software, encrypted messages cannot be read.

Under current law, the United States allows only fifty-six bit encryption codes to be exported, although most software companies produce and sell encryption codes of up to 128 bits within the United States. Fifty-six bit encryption has been decoded with “brute force” in a matter of days by university students. One hundred twenty-eight bit encryption codes are virtually unbreakable.

Last year, Smith was the lone vote in support of the SAFE Act in the House National Security Committee.