One of the provisions of 1201 (the DMCA) set aside the tricky and controversial issue of banning the circumvention of protection measures for the Librarian of Congress to decide every three years. The Librarian of Congress is appointed by the president.
This is an area for heightened scrutiny, and is one of the main issues in the Universal v. 2600 case. Until October 29, 2000, circumventing an access control measure is legal. After October 29, 2000, that may or may not change. The Librarian of Congress will issue a ruling based on how 1201's prohibition on circumvention will affect fair use and other rights and limitations afforded to copyright holders prior to the DMCA.
On the other hand, the moment the law was ratified, it became illegal to provide "devices" that make circumvention possible.
[pause]
Yes, that means that it may be legal to circumvent the access control measure of a copyrighted work, yet nobody will be permitted to sell or give you a device or means of exercising that right. Imagine having a right to read your kid's report card, but nobody can legally give you the decoder ring necessary to read it! You will have to build your own. Not every one of us is a cryptographer, computer programmer, AND an electrical engineer, yet this law requires us to be in order to exercise our rights.
Here are the hearing transcripts and comments submitted to the Librarian
of Congress during the first round of rulemaking. The transcripts post-hearing
comments are on this disc, the rest are at the copyright office's webpage
(there are hundreds, but don't let that intimidate you. Even browsing the
names of people and organizations that participated can be enlightening.)