Representative Howard Berman in the House of Representatives (Cong. Rec. E2315) (daily ed. Nov. 12, 1998):

First, the operative provisions which define the key prohibition of trafficking in the tools of circumvention of technological protection measures--section 1201(a)(2) and (a)(3), and section 1201(b)(1) and (b)(2), of Title 17--were not changed throughout the legislative process. They read almost verbatim in the final version of this legislation, which is on the way to the President’s desk, as they read when the legislation was first introduced, when it was reported by the Judiciary Committee, and when it was unanimously approved by the House. Thus, statements on the floor that purport to explain how these provisions have been narrowed, or how implicit exceptions to them--not spelled out in the language of the bill--have been expanded, deserve little attention. In particular, the three-point test spelled out in sections 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1) for determining whether a particular product or service runs afoul of the legislation has never been substantively amended. This test remains operative, not the test of ‘no legitimate purpose’ imagined by some of my colleagues.

Second, the operative provision defining the prohibition on the act of circumvention of technological protection measures that control access to copyrighted materials--contained in section 1201(a)(1)--has also emerged from the legislative process completely unchanged. It is true that the effective date of this prohibition has been delayed, and that a rulemaking proceeding has been grafted on to this provision to determine whether, with regard to particular classes of copyrighted materials, the applicability of this particular prohibition should be delayed even further. But the prohibition itself remains unchanged, and means exactly what it meant when our committee first reported it several months ago.