[rayiner]

This appears to be Clinton era. Remember, a lot of pioneering work in encryption was done for military purposes. At the time, I think it was fair for people to fail to see how it could be used by ordinary people, and think of it akin to exporting military technology.

[rtkwe]

Also before eCommerce and the Internet in general really took off the main application for encryption was national communications and in particular use by the military. With that view and context there's a pretty fair argument that proper strong encryption is mostly a military device, similar to the way GPS devices are limited to a certain speed and a given height. It turned out to be patently false but at the time it's not that outlandish of an assumption/view, especially in the limited world view of national security and spying agencies.