Legal Protection For Minorities Essays - Sexual Orientation

Legal Protection For Minorities? Do you think that special interest groups such as homosexuals, women, and other minorities need special constitutional amendments to protect them from discrimination? Explain. Whenever this subject is brought up it usually brings a lot of controversy with it. I am one of many I am sure who is torn when it comes to discussing the rights of minority groups. Although I don't feel that any specific group deserves special protection over another group; I do feel that all groups of people deserve equal protection under the law regardless of race, nationality, religion, political views, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. Most all of these minority groups are protected under the law but one that isn't are gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Employment discrimination is the most common complaint received by the American Civil Liberties Union from gays and lesbians. As of mid-1996, Americans can be legally fired from their jobs simply because of their sexual orientation in 41 states. That number is still the same to this very day. A study showed that gays earned from 11 to 17% less and lesbians earn 5 to 14% less than the national average. The American Civil Liberties Union claims that the only thing close to a representative survey suggests that lesbians and gay men generally earn less than their heterosexual counterparts. But even if the average homosexual earned more than the average heterosexual, there would still be many gays and lesbians discriminated against in employment, and in need of legal protection of some sort. When the first civil rights bill to follow the US civil war was debated in Congress, it was criticized for granting special rights to Afro-Americans. When the Civil Rights Act was debated in 1964, it was criticized because it would attack individual freedom of choice in hiring. But it passed. It guaranteed protection against discrimination in employment on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, and disability. But the Civil rights Act gave no protection for people on the basis of sexual orientation. As of October 1998, only 12 states in the US had passed civil rights legislation protecting homosexual worker. This means that in 80% of the states, an employer is perfectly within their rights to fire (or refuse to hire, or refuse to promote) an employee solely because of their sexual orientation. This puts heterosexuals, homosexuals and bisexuals all at risk of being fired. A bill was introduced in the mid 1970's which would do for gays and lesbians what it had done for Afro-Americans, and women and others. It went nowhere. Another version of the bill was presented to congress in 1994. It was called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or ENDA. It was supported by President. Clinton, and reintroduced in September of 1996 with the backing of the House and Senate Democratic minority leaders. The bill was characterized by conservative Republicans as controversial, immoral, and un-American. Although it made it to the Senate it was not passed, and would not have had a chance at all in the house. Homosexuality, though not supported by many Americans, is a way of life; and no reason for someone to be legally discriminated against under United States law. America is supposed to be a land of equal opportunity; not a land of equal opportunity for everyone except those who lead lifestyles different than ours. Social Issues Essays

Studio 54,the Legendary Club essays

Studio 54,the Legendary Club essays Studio 54, one of the most well known clubs, opened its doors to the public on April 26, 1977. Its enormous size and glamour attracted thousands of people, and just being able to get in meant you were very fashionable. A variety of people entered the club and had the opportunity to listen and dance to the greatest beats of the time. The club was originally an old theatre, and many people had been interested in turning the old theatre into a nightclub. However, it wasnt until Steve Rubbel and Ian Schager signed the lease for the building that something really happened. Both Steve and Ian had been working in the night club business so prior experience was a main factor in the success of the club. One of the reasons why studio 54 stood out, was because of its size and decoration. To begin with, it measured 100 meters long by 80 meters wide. Since it was an old theatre, the balcony and the stage was left on purpose to give a theatrical feel. In the balcony there were sitting areas with tables where guests overlooked the huge parquet floor. An enormous strobe light decorated the club and brightly lit columns came down from the ceiling. Around the dance floor there was a diamond shaped bar with mirrors everywhere. In the basement of the club, VIPs had the opportunity to feel distinguished in a room where only a privileged few could enter and have fun among the elite and fashionable people of the time. Undoubtedly Studio 54 was a spectacular club both in appearance and style. For the premier night of Studio 54 the owners hired a party promoter to invite the right people. Five thousand invitations where given out. Workers were working around the clock to prepare the last details for the grand opening. The club opened its doors half an hour late and in a few hours time it was full. It was chaos inside and outside the club to a point where eve ...

Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, and the War on Terror Research Paper

Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, and the War on Terror - Research Paper Example The provision is based on Former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s jailing suspected Confederate sympathizers without relief during the U.S. Civil War, suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus. President Lincoln issued the Habeas Corpus suspension to keep the spies, enemies, aiders, abettors, and deserters during the Civil War (Lincoln, 1989, p. 511). In the case of Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2005), the Supreme Court ruled that foreign nationals being held as enemy combatants in the war on terror had the right to challenge their incarceration at Guantanamo Bay. Similarly, the Supreme Court decided in the Boumediene v. Bush (2008) case that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 did not implement any alternative to the habeas corpus provision of the U.S. Constitution (Vile, 2010, p. 48). Further, U.S. Criminal law’s cause and prejudice rule reiterates the doctrine that the prisoners can petition, through a representative or by himself, the courts for a federal writ of habeas co rpus on the ground that the prisoners’ constitutional rights were overlooked or abused, prejudicing the prisoner(Garner, 2009, p. 279). Habeas corpus is related to the protection of the other civil liberties. Black’s law dictionary defines civil liberty as â€Å"Freedom from undue government interference or restraint.† The civil liberties include freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and other liberties mentioned in the U.S. Constitutions’ Bill of Rights section. Further, the prior U.S. civil liberties were provided by the 1648 Lawes and Libertyes of Massachusetts. Likewise, the civil liberties were enshrined in the 1791 Bill of Rights provisions. In addition, the civil liberties were included in England’s 1216 Magna Carta Law. The Civil liberties were also emphasized in England’s 1628 the Petition of Rights and the 1689 Bill of Rights Law. Just like the civil liberties, the affected persons an d groups are granted the right to ask the courts to produce the body of the detained prisoners, including those incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay (Garner 2009, p.308). Further, Black’s law dictionary states that the U.S. Bill of Rights is based Habeas Corpus Act [31 Car. 2, 1679] (Garner 2009, 217). Question 2.During the 18th Century, England assigned governors to oversee the statehood of each United States’ historic colonies. England’s policy of promoting the colonies into states was incorporated in the Article 5 of the 1787 Ordinance. The State Constitution’s Article 2’s civil liberties sections included a habeas corpus provision protecting the citizens from government abuses (Keene, 2004, p.74). Further, the United States President authorized the suspension of the Write of Habeas Corpus in 1863, 1866, and 1857. The United States Congress approved the United States president’s suspension during the same time periods. However, there was no gen eral act that would suspend the Writ indicated in the Revised Statutes. During the 17th Century, Britain allowed its English subjects the right to Habeas Corpus. Only England’s Court of the King’s Bench had the power to execute a Writ of Habeas Corpus, not the court judge. The courts implemented the Habeas Corpus Act of Charles II and revised the defects found in England’s 1869 Bill of Rights (Stimson, 2004, p.166). In terms of history, the September 11, 2001 twin towers attack can be classified as an

New venture opportunity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

New venture opportunity - Essay Example The main aim of ESS Designs will be to provide a simple, classy and well-tailored look for all our clients. We not only want to provide a distinctive look but we also want to be recognized as a trendsetter in the clothing industry. To start with the new company, the first range of product that ESS Designs will focus on will be a collection of jackets for women, men and children. Based on the research that the appointed team members of ESS Designs have conducted, there have been a lot of customer’s requests that have been made by various customers on the scarcity of jackets’ design. Therefore, building upon this, the first range of product that ESS Designs will focus on will be on a collection of jackets for all our targeted clientele. As a start-up company, ESS Designs will first operate in a small geographical region. However, it is evident that with the inception of technology our client reach may go beyond the borders. The company will be located in the United States in Pennsylvania. This is where our headquarters will be. Nevertheless, ESS Designs will embrace the use of advertising and public relation to make our new range of product known and also to build upon the image of the company. It is also worth noting that the prices of our products will be quite pocket-friendly thus aside from quality will strive to ensure that our targeted consumers are well catered for with regards to the pricing range. In order to examine the impact of this new venture, a thorough SWOT analysis will be conducted on ESS Designs.

RoseColored Glasses and The Glass Menagerie Essay Example for Free

RoseColored Glasses and The Glass Menagerie Essay The Glass Menagerie is about a dysfunctional family that consists of a mother, and her two adult children, Tom and Laura. All of them dream to seek comfort and to escape reality because none of them enjoys the life they lead. Similarly, in Rose-Colored Glasses, the narrator of the poem is inclined to dream rather than to face reality because she has not overcome the transition from one big happy family to getting kicked out of her old home and having divorced parents. These two families are reflections of each other because in both families, the characters rely on dreaming to overcome not only the fathers abandoning the family, but also to escape the financial and emotional despair in their livesboth of which are direct impacts from the fathers absence. Faced with disappointment because the fathers desert the family, the characters In Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie and Elizabeth Alexanders Rose-Colored Glasses, withdraw into their distinct worlds to escape the expectations that reality demands. Disappointment is a theme in both the story and the play and with similar impacts on the family. The first time the characters face disappointment is when the fathers leave the familyone through divorce, the other fell in love with long distances. The first impact is emotional despair for both families. In the Wingfield family, Amanda openly expresses her remorse and regret for marrying the absent father. Tom is emotionally distraught because he has to fill his fathers shoes in providing for the family when all he wants to do is to leave and become a sailor. The narrator in Rose-Colored Glasses experiences sadness because her family is broken apart. Besides emotional despair, both families are faced with financial problems. The narrator is kicked out of her apartment which is even more beautiful then it was then, and perfect. This shows how much she wants it back and how sad she must have been when she moved. As for the Wingfields, Tom makes so little money that he has to sacrifice the money for the light bill in order to pay for membership in the Merchant Marines. Laura is deeply disappointed when Jim tells her he is engaged that she may never have renewed hope for anyone again. Disappointment is a theme that partly drives the characters to retreat more so into their illusional worlds in order to escape emotional hurt and financial problems in the real world. The illusional worlds that the characters imagine themselves to be in are sometimes caused by the theme, expectations. Amanda expects Laura to be just like her and actually dreams Laura can be if she just develops vivacity and charm. Amanda fantasizes that these traits can easily be developed if one wills it. However, this is not an easy task for Laura because she is extremely shy. Although Laura is never expecting any gentlemen caller, Amanda never stops telling her to stay fresh and pretty because its almost time for our gentlemen callers to start arriving! 10 From this, we can tell that Amanda expects too much that in her mind, it becomes believable. In another scene, Amanda expects Tom to find Laura a husband in order to secure her future. Amanda so strongly expects Jim to be Lauras future husband that she actually begins to believe it. She ends up over preparing the house and over dressing Laura. She later accuses Tom of playing a joke on her when in fact, she never minded to ask him about it. Laura, on the other hand expects something to come out of her and Jims meeting because he kissed her. She sits dazed after he kisses her, possibilly imagining that he likes her when in fact, this is a false illusion created by her expectation. The narrator in Rose-Colored Glasses however, does not expect, but is expected from her mother to act grown up. When contrasting the time when she would Played checkers with a dolly being enough to be your sister and there was no desperation where one day [she] would cut off [her] tow long braids to now, she is obviously desperate to grow up because she is expected to be. during the years before the divorce she was still a child however the family breaks apart, she walks the passage to overcoming the impact of the divorce and during the process, matured. She feels obliged to deal with the divorce maturely, but at the same time does not want to stop being a child alotgehter, and so she retreats into her own illusional world where she can do whatever she wants. In order to escape disappointment and expectations in life, escapism is a theme in both Rose-Colored Glasses and The Glass Menagerie. Characters from both texts escape in one way or another in order to avoid confrontation with the harshness of reality. Tom goes to the movies to escape the mundane life he leads. Laura indulges in her glass menagerie and music to avoid her mothers expectations of her to socialize. Laura actually wants to be a part  of her glass menagerie and imagines herself to be. In fact, Lauras separation [from reality] increases till she is like a piece of her own glass collection. ixx Amanda and the narrator nostalgically reminisces their pasts as a way to escape. The narrator relives the past in her mind when there was no divorce and where you swung on a trapeze in the dining room archway and Plinked-plinked on the piano and Your little dogs nails scritch-scratching the hardwood floors when he heard you walking from the elevator. The narrator seeks comfort by immersing herself in her past, or perhaps she feels control over her life when she recalls these memories. Similarly, Amandas memories not only let her cling to another time, but also offer her escape from the blow to her self image when her husband deserted her. It is hard for any reasonable reader to believe that Amanda had 17 gentlemen callers in one day. She retreats so far into her world of illusions that this illusion becomes almost too real for her. She wears her yellow dress, believing that she can be just as youthful and vivacious as she was years ago when in fact, the dress is clearly out of place and time, and elicits surprise from both Jim and Tom. In both the novel and play, the theme disappointment leads the narrator in Elizabeth Alexanders Rose Colored-Glasses and Amanda, Tom and Laura in Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie to similar problemsthat is Amanda, Tom and Laura and the narrator become emotionally detached from the real world as they are left to cope with the disappointment that the fathers instill in them. Furthermore, the father leaves all his problems behind for the rest of the family which means every member of the family must fill new expectations in place of the father. Tom is expected to provide for the family, Amanda to care for her two children, Laura to get married so that she does not need to depend on Tom, and the narrator is expected to handle the divorce maturely. All of these expectations are against the wishes of the person expected to initiate them. Tom would rather become a sailor, Amanda to become youthful and to be given the chance to choose a new husband, Laura to become part of her glass menagerie world, and the narrator to live her childhood. All these expectations make reality hard to face and so the characters escape into worlds dreamt in their minds. Amanda and the narrator dream their old times, Tom dreams his sailing prospects, and Laura  dreams to be part of her glass menagerie world. Disappointment, expectation, and escapism are all central themes to both plays in order to convey the major theme that although the human need to dream may give one escape for a brief period of time, retreating too deeply into the dream can be harmful because you do not see reality as it is.

Rev. Richard Johnson :: essays research papers

Reverend Richard Johnson In a land intended to be dumping grounds for Britain’s moral filth, Reverend Richard Johnson worked hard at laying the foundations of Christianity in Australia. Born in 1757 at Welton, England, he was educated at Magdalen College, Cambridge. He graduated with a BA in 1783, and was appointed a deacon and priest by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1786. Only five months before the First Fleet set sail, Richard Johnson was recommended and approved for the position of Chaplin, to establish the Church of England in Australia. Governor Phillip saw Johnson’s job as a "moral policeman" to the convicts, but the chaplain viewed his position as a door of opportunity to preach the Gospel to the "dregs of humanity." His work began even before the ship landed, and his moral nature displayed. Johnson found the ship's company very disrespectful and profane and targeted this in his teaching. On the following Sunday it was noted that for days afterwards their behaviour had improved. On Sunday the 3rd of February 1788, Johnson preached his first sermon to a crowd of both soldiers and convicts. Being a result of the Evangelical revival in England, Johnson laboured for their salvation and tried to encourage goodness in them. He requested the help of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, who provided him with 4200 books in total for the new colony, including Bibles, Testaments, Prayer Books, Catechisms, Psalters, and religious booklets against common sins. His job was not an easy one as he was meant to carry out many duties placed upon him by the Governor as well as the mission of his own. Johnson’s duties included officiating at hangings and acting as magistrate when needed. In the first five years, he conducted 226 baptisms, 220 marriages and 851 funerals. One of Johnson’s obstacles was the lack of support he received. He and his wife, Mary, lived in a cabbage palm hut for the first three years while the Governor had two mansions. Many times his family was short of food and in addition to his regular duties; he worked on his farm to provide for his family. Richard Johnson was a compassionate man who even took an Aboriginal girl, who had contracted smallpox, into his home for several months. This trait made Australia appear as a destination unsuitable for him, but at the same time, he was the best man for the job.

Digital Fortress Chapter 7

Susan's mind was racing-Ensei Tankado wrote a program that creates unbreakable codes! She could barely grasp the thought. â€Å"Digital Fortress,† Strathmore said. â€Å"That's what he's calling it. It's the ultimate counterintelligence weapon. If this program hits the market, every third grader with a modem will be able to send codes the NSA can't break. Our intelligence will be shot.† But Susan's thoughts were far removed from the political implications of Digital Fortress. She was still struggling to comprehend its existence. She'd spent her life breaking codes, firmly denying the existence of the ultimate code. Every code is breakable-the Bergofsky Principle! She felt like an atheist coming face to face with God. â€Å"If this code gets out,† she whispered, â€Å"cryptography will become a dead science.† Strathmore nodded. â€Å"That's the least of our problems.† â€Å"Can we pay Tankado off? I know he hates us, but can't we offer him a few million dollars? Convince him not to distribute?† Strathmore laughed. â€Å"A few million? Do you know what this thing is worth? Every government in the world will bid top dollar. Can you imagine telling the President that we're still cable-snooping the Iraqis but we can't read the intercepts anymore? This isn't just about the NSA, it's about the entire intelligence community. This facility provides support for everyone-the FBI, CIA, DEA; they'd all be flying blind. The drug cartels' shipments would become untraceable, major corporations could transfer money with no paper trail and leave the IRS out in the cold, terrorists could chat in total secrecy-it would be chaos.† â€Å"The EFF will have field day,† Susan said, pale. â€Å"The EFF doesn't have the first clue about what we do here,† Strathmore railed in disgust. â€Å"If they knew how many terrorist attacks we've stopped because we can decrypt codes, they'd change their tune.† Susan agreed, but she also knew the realities; the EFF would never know how important TRANSLTR was. TRANSLTR had helped foil dozens of attacks, but the information was highly classified and would never be released. The rationale behind the secrecy was simple: The government could not afford the mass hysteria caused by revealing the truth; no one knew how the public would react to the news that there had been two nuclear close calls by fundamentalist groups on U.S. soil in the last year. Nuclear attack, however, was not the only threat. Only last month TRANSLTR had thwarted one of the most ingeniously conceived terrorist attacks the NSA had ever witnessed. An anti-government organization had devised a plan, code-named Sherwood Forest. It targeted the New York Stock Exchange with the intention of â€Å"redistributing the wealth.† Over the course of six days, members of the group placed twenty-seven nonexplosive flux pods in the buildings surrounding the Exchange. These devices, when detonated, create a powerful blast of magnetism. The simultaneous discharge of these carefully placed pods would create a magnetic field so powerful that all magnetic media in the Stock Exchange would be erased-computer hard drives, massive ROM storage banks, tape backups, and even floppy disks. All records of who owned what would disintegrate permanently. Because pinpoint timing was necessary for simultaneous detonation of the devices, the flux pods were interconnected over Internet telephone lines. During the two-day countdown, the pods' internal clocks exchanged endless streams of encrypted synchronization data. The NSA intercepted the data-pulses as a network anomaly but ignored them as a seemingly harmless exchange of gibberish. But after TRANSLTR decrypted the data streams, analysts immediately recognized the sequence as a network-synchronized countdown. The pods were located and removed a full three hours before they were scheduled to go off. Susan knew that without TRANSLTR the NSA was helpless against advanced electronic terrorism. She eyed the Run-Monitor. It still read over fifteen hours. Even if Tankado's file broke right now, the NSA was sunk. Crypto would be relegated to breaking less than two codes a day. Even at the present rate of 150 a day, there was still a backlog of files awaiting decryption. â€Å"Tankado called me last month,† Strathmore said, interrupting Susan's thoughts. Susan looked up. â€Å"Tankado called you?† He nodded. â€Å"To warn me.† â€Å"Warn you? He hates you.† â€Å"He called to tell me he was perfecting an algorithm that wrote unbreakable codes. I didn't believe him.† â€Å"But why would he tell you about it?† Susan demanded. â€Å"Did he want you to buy it?† â€Å"No. It was blackmail.† Things suddenly began falling into place for Susan. â€Å"Of course,† she said, amazed. â€Å"He wanted you to clear his name.† â€Å"No,† Strathmore frowned. â€Å"Tankado wanted TRANSLTR.† â€Å"TRANSLTR?† â€Å"Yes. He ordered me to go public and tell the world we have TRANSLTR. He said if we admitted we can read public E-mail, he would destroy Digital Fortress.† Susan looked doubtful. Strathmore shrugged. â€Å"Either way, it's too late now. He's posted a complimentary copy of Digital Fortress at his Internet site. Everyone in the world can download it.† Susan went white. â€Å"He what!† â€Å"It's a publicity stunt. Nothing to worry about. The copy he posted is encrypted. People can download it, but nobody can open it. It's ingenious, really. The source code for Digital Fortress has been encrypted, locked shut.† Susan looked amazed. â€Å"Of course! So everybody can have a copy, but nobody can open it.† â€Å"Exactly. Tankado's dangling a carrot.† â€Å"Have you seen the algorithm?† The commander looked puzzled. â€Å"No, I told you it's encrypted.† Susan looked equally puzzled. â€Å"But we've got TRANSLTR; why not just decrypt it?† But when Susan saw Strathmore's face, she realized the rules had changed. â€Å"Oh my God.† She gasped, suddenly understanding. â€Å"Digital Fortress is encrypted with itself?† Strathmore nodded. â€Å"Bingo.† Susan was amazed. The formula for Digital Fortress had been encrypted using Digital Fortress. Tankado had posted a priceless mathematical recipe, but the text of the recipe had been scrambled. And it had used itself to do the scrambling. â€Å"It's Biggleman's Safe,† Susan stammered in awe. Strathmore nodded. Biggleman's Safe was a hypothetical cryptography scenario in which a safe builder wrote blueprints for an unbreakable safe. He wanted to keep the blueprints a secret, so he built the safe and locked the blueprints inside. Tankado had done the same thing with Digital Fortress. He'd protected his blueprints by encrypting them with the formula outlined in his blueprints. â€Å"And the file in TRANSLTR?† Susan asked. â€Å"I downloaded it from Tankado's Internet site like everyone else. The NSA is now the proud owner of the Digital Fortress algorithm; we just can't open it.† Susan marveled at Ensei Tankado's ingenuity. Without revealing his algorithm, he had proven to the NSA that it was unbreakable. Strathmore handed her a newspaper clipping. It was a translated blurb from the Nikkei Shimbun, the Japanese equivalent of the Wall Street Journal, stating that the Japanese programmer Ensei Tankado had completed a mathematical formula he claimed could write unbreakable codes. The formula was called Digital Fortress and was available for review on the Internet. The programmer would be auctioning it off to the highest bidder. The column went on to say that although there was enormous interest in Japan, the few U.S. software companies who had heard about Digital Fortress deemed the claim preposterous, akin to turning lead to gold. The formula, they said, was a hoax and not to be taken seriously. Susan looked up. â€Å"An auction?† Strathmore nodded. â€Å"Right now every software company in Japan has downloaded an encrypted copy of Digital Fortress and is trying to crack it open. Every second they can't, the bidding price climbs.† â€Å"That's absurd,† Susan shot back. â€Å"All the new encrypted files are uncrackable unless you have TRANSLTR. Digital Fortress could be nothing more than a generic, public-domain algorithm, and none of these companies could break it.† â€Å"But it's a brilliant marketing ploy,† Strathmore said. â€Å"Think about it-all brands of bulletproof glass stop bullets, but if a company dares you to put a bullet through theirs, suddenly everybody's trying.† â€Å"And the Japanese actually believe Digital Fortress is different? Better than everything else on the market?† â€Å"Tankado may have been shunned, but everybody knows he's a genius. He's practically a cult icon among hackers. If Tankado says the algorithm's unbreakable, it's unbreakable.† But they're all unbreakable as far as the public knows!† â€Å"Yes†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Strathmore mused. â€Å"For the moment.† â€Å"What's that supposed to mean?† Strathmore sighed. â€Å"Twenty years ago no one imagined we'd be breaking twelve-bit stream ciphers. But technology progressed. It always does. Software manufacturers assume at some point computers like TRANSLTR will exist. Technology is progressing exponentially, and eventually current public-key algorithms will lose their security. Better algorithms will be needed to stay ahead of tomorrow's computers.† â€Å"And Digital Fortress is it?† â€Å"Exactly. An algorithm that resists brute force will never become obsolete, no matter how powerful code-breaking computers get. It could become a world standard overnight.† Susan pulled in a long breath. â€Å"God help us,† she whispered. â€Å"Can we make a bid?† Strathmore shook his head. â€Å"Tankado gave us our chance. He made that clear. It's too risky anyway; if we get caught, we're basically admitting that we're afraid of his algorithm. We'd be making a public confession not only that we have TRANSLTR but that Digital Fortress is immune.† â€Å"What's the time frame?† Strathmore frowned. â€Å"Tankado planned to announce the highest bidder tomorrow at noon.† Susan felt her stomach tighten. â€Å"Then what?† â€Å"The arrangement was that he would give the winner the pass-key.† â€Å"The pass-key?† â€Å"Part of the ploy. Everybody's already got the algorithm, so Tankado's auctioning off the pass-key that unlocks it.† Susan groaned. â€Å"Of course.† It was perfect. Clean and simple. Tankado had encrypted Digital Fortress, and he alone held the pass-key that unlocked it. She found it hard to fathom that somewhere out there-probably scrawled on a piece of paper in Tankado's pocket-there was a sixty-four-character pass-key that could end U.S. intelligence gathering forever. Susan suddenly felt ill as she imagined the scenario. Tankado would give his pass-key to the highest bidder, and that company would unlock the Digital Fortress file. Then it probably would embed the algorithm in a tamper-proof chip, and within five years every computer would come preloaded with a Digital Fortress chip. No commercial manufacturer had ever dreamed of creating an encryption chip because normal encryption algorithms eventually become obsolete. But Digital Fortress would never become obsolete; with a rotating cleartext function, no brute-force attack would ever find the right key. A new digital encryption standard. From now until forever. Every code unbreakable. Bankers, brokers, terrorists, spies. One world-one algorithm. Anarchy. â€Å"What are the options?† Susan probed. She was well aware that desperate times called for desperate measures, even at the NSA. â€Å"We can't remove him, if that's what you're asking.† It was exactly what Susan was asking. In her years with the NSA, Susan had heard rumors of its loose affiliations with the most skilled assassins in the world-hired hands brought in to do the intelligence community's dirty work. Strathmore shook his head. â€Å"Tankado's too smart to leave us an option like that.† Susan felt oddly relieved. â€Å"He's protected?† â€Å"Not exactly.† â€Å"In hiding?† Strathmore shrugged. â€Å"Tankado left Japan. He planned to check his bids by phone. But we know where he is.† â€Å"And you don't plan to make a move?† â€Å"No. He's got insurance. Tankado gave a copy of his pass-key to an anonymous third party†¦ in case anything happened.† Of course, Susan marveled. A guardian angel. â€Å"And I suppose if anything happens to Tankado, the mystery man sells the key?† â€Å"Worse. Anyone hits Tankado, and his partner publishes.† Susan looked confused. â€Å"His partner publishes the key?† Strathmore nodded. â€Å"Posts it on the Internet, puts it in newspapers, on billboards. In effect, he gives it away.† Susan's eyes widened. â€Å"Free downloads?† â€Å"Exactly. Tankado figured if he was dead, he wouldn't need the money-why not give the world a little farewell gift?† There was a long silence. Susan breathed deeply as if to absorb the terrifying truth. Ensei Tankado has created an unbreakable algorithm. He's holding us hostage. She suddenly stood. Her voice was determined. â€Å"We must contact Tankado! There must be a way to convince him not to release! We can offer him triple the highest bid! We can clear his name! Anything!† â€Å"Too late,† Strathmore said. He took a deep breath. â€Å"Ensei Tankado was found dead this morning in Seville, Spain.†