[330] in libertarians
Road to Outlaw Code (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rich Carreiro)
Mon Oct 24 22:07:20 1994
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 94 19:57:29 EDT
From: rlcarr@animato.pn.com (Rich Carreiro)
To: jtidwell@MIT.EDU
Cc: libertarians@MIT.EDU
On Oct 20, bart@netcom.com wrote:
|-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------|
Of course we knew this was coming. But now it is confirmed.
Sorry to interrupt logo discussion.
Forwarded message:
> From owner-cwd-l@lh.cyberwerks.com Thu Oct 20 00:32:34 1994
> Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 00:06:41 -0700
> From: "Brock N. Meeks" <brock@well.sf.ca.us>
> Message-Id: <199410200706.AAA13332@well.sf.ca.us>
> To: cwd-l@cyberwerks.com
> Subject: Road to Outlaw Code
> Sender: owner-cwd-l@lh.cyberwerks.com
> Precedence: bulk
>
>
> CyberWire Dispatch // Copyright (c) 1994 //
>
> Jacking in from the "Sooner or Later" Port:
>
> Washington, DC -- If private encryption schemes interfere with
> the FBI's ability to wiretap, they could be outlawed, according
> to recent comments made by the agency's Director Louis Freeh.
>
> Freeh told attendees here at the recent conference on Global
> Cryptography that if the Administration's Escrowed Encryption
> System, otherwise known as the Clipper Chip, failed to gain
> acceptance, giving way to private encryption technologies, he would
> have no choice but to press Congress to pass legislation that
> provided law enforcement access to *all* encrypted
> communications.
>
> If, after having pushed Digital Telephony through Congress (which
> hadn't yet happened when Freeh spoke at this conference), all the
> Bureau ended up with during wiretaps were the scratchy hiss of
> digital one's and zeros being hurled back and forth, Freeh made it
> clear that he would seek a congressional mandate to solve the
> problem.
>
> In other words: Roll your own coded communications; go to jail.
>
> Freeh's comments, made during a question and answer session at the
> conference, are the first public statements made by an
> Administration official hinting at a future governmental policy
> that could result in the banning of non-governmental, unbreakable
> encryption methods.
>
> Freeh's remarks were first reported on the WELL by MacWorld writer
> and author Steven Levy. The FBI confirmed those
> statements to Dispatch.
>
> The Administration, however, continues to state that it has no
> plans to outlaw or place any restrictions on private encryption
> methods.
>
> A White House official said there are "absolutely no plans" on the
> table to regulate domestic encryption "at the present time." He
> wouldn't comment, however, as to whether the Administration would
> back an FBI attempt for such legislation. "Freeh doesn't seem to
> need a lot of White House support," to get things done, the
> official said.
>
> FBI sources said any moves to approach Congress about regulating
> private encryption are "so far out there" time wise, that the
> subject "doesn't merit much ink," as one FBI source put it. "We've
> got to make sure the telcos rig up their current networks according
> to the new [digital wiretap] law before we go worrying about
> private encryption stuff," he said.
>
> An FBI spokesman confirmed Freeh's position that the Bureau would
> aggressively seek to maintain what the spokesman called "law and
> order objectives." If that meant getting laws passed so that the
> Bureau's "authorized wiretap activities" couldn't be thwarted by
> "criminal elements using non-governmental" encryption schemes,
> "then that's what he [Freeh] would do," the spokesman said.
>
> When the Administration went public with its Clipper Chip policy,
> it stressed that the program would be mandatory. Many civil
> liberties groups wondered out loud how long it would be before
> private encryption was banned altogether. The White House, anxious
> for the public to buy into its one-trick pony the Clipper Chip,
> said that wouldn't happen.
>
> But the Administration hedged its bet.
>
> Buried in the background briefing papers of the original Clipper
> announcement, is a statement that the White House doesn't
> consider the public's right to use private encryption methods are
> protected anywhere in the Constitution.
>
> Meeks out...
>
|------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------|
Rich Carreiro
rlcarr@animato.pn.com
