This smells a lot like the misguided crypto export laws in the 90s that hampered browser security for years.
It hampered the security of a lot of things. That wasn't misguided -- that was the point.
China, Russia, and Iran used Internet Explorer too.
And don't forget the amazing workaround Zimmerman of PGP fame came up with - the source code in printed form was protected 1A speech, so it was published, distributed, and then scanned and OCR'd outside the US - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_i...