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Re: Planned Net-treaty limits privacy, may compel key

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard D. Murad)
Wed May 3 11:20:34 2000

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Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 11:18:17 -0400
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: "Richard D. Murad" <rdmurad@mitre.org>
In-Reply-To: <4.3.0.20000503090940.020aa010@mail.well.com>
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Does obligations through treaty circumvent US law and US 
constitutionality?  In other words, if the US signs and ratifies a treaty, 
does it take precedence over other US law?

If so, it's a way to do an end-run around US law and US constitutionality.

Rick Murad


At 09:09 AM 5/3/2000 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
 >
 >
 >The document:
 >http://www.politechbot.com/docs/treaty.html
 >
 >
 >http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,36047,00.html
 >
 >    Cyber-treaty Goes Too Far?
 >    by Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
 >
 >    3:00 a.m. May. 3, 2000 PDT
 >    WASHINGTON -- U.S. and European police agencies will receive new
 >    powers to investigate and prosecute computer crimes, according to a
 >    preliminary draft of a treaty being circulated among over 40 nations.
 >
 >    The Council of Europe's 65KB proposal is designed to aid police in
 >    investigations of online miscreants in cases where attacks or
 >    intrusions cross national borders.
 >
 >    But the details of the "Draft Convention on Cybercrime" worry U.S.
 >    civil libertarians. They warn that the plan would violate longstanding
 >    privacy rights and grant the government far too much power.
 >
 >    The proposal, which is expected to be finalized by December 2000 and
 >    appears to be the first computer crime treaty, would:
 >
 >     * Make it a crime to create, download, or post on a website any
 >     computer program that is "designed or adapted" primarily to gain
 >     access to a computer system without permission. Also banned is
 >     software designed to interfere with the "functioning of a computer
 >     system" by deleting or altering data.
 >
 >     * Allow authorities to order someone to reveal his or her passphrase
 >     for an encryption key. According to a recent survey, only Singapore
 >     and Malaysia have enacted such a requirement into law, and experts say
 >     that in the United States it could run afoul of constitutional
 >     protections against self-incrimination.
 >
 >     * Internationalize a U.S. law that makes it a crime to possess even
 >     digital images that "appear" to represent children's genitals or
 >     children engaged in sexual conduct. Linking to such a site also would
 >     be a crime.
 >
 >     * Require websites and Internet providers to collect information about
 >     their users, a rule that would potentially limit anonymous remailers.
 >
 >    [...]
 >
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