Supporters of the Clipper chip also pointed out that there were safeguards to minimize the possibility of abuse or security breaches. The required two people at escrow agent to open the safe where key in addition, one individual from each of the custodial quite would be involved in assembling the This would make difficult for anyone to extract the key without the proper author rization. Also, as Dorothy Denning observed, protection against abuse would be buttressed by an extensive auditing of the system: "By exam- ining detailed audit records, it will be possible to determine ifieys are used only as authorized and to decrypt only communications inter- cepted during authorized surveillance "20 Some proponents of this tech- nology, such as Professor Denning, believed that there would be suffi- cient checks and balances to counter the potential for abuses or fraudulent behavior. These arguments, however persuasive, fell on deaf ears. Eventu ally, the Clinton administration succumbed to the concerted opposition to Clipper by civil libertarians and certain interests, and it abandoned this plan.