[10583] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Would Mike Nelson Please Explain His Mission?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Sun Feb 27 08:49:47 1994
From: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 1994 12:06:25 PST
To: com-priv@psi.com
On Thursday evening Dan Weitzner of EFF published to the net a statement that
said that in an NII Advisory Committee meeting Al Gore "said that key escrow
policy announced last Friday (2/4/94) had serious flaws and that he hope[d]
the issue of who holds the keys and under what terms would be given more
serious, careful consideration.
Gore made it clear that some amount of control of cryptography technology was
necessary for national security." Gore added that "the key escrow policies
announced by the Departments of Justice, Commerce & State, and the NSA, were
"low level decisions" that got out before thorough analysis."
Yesterday Jayne Levin (the Internet Letter) published her own interview with
Gore that apparently took place at the close of the same meeting.
Levin writes:
"Under the Clipper plan, the keys would be stored at the
Treasury Department and the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST), which is part of the Commerce Department.
Both Treasury and Commerce are from the same branch of
government, the executive branch.
"When I saw that I said, 'Wow. Wow. That is not right,' and
I raised hell about that," Gore said in an interview Thursday.
Having the key holders from the same branch of government
raises concern because there is no system of checks and
balances, Gore said. "That's going to be changed," he said."
And Levin added:
"The selection of NIST and Treasury "was spun out of the
process at the low level and was not vetted at the top," Gore
said. "
Now Weitzner concluded:
Mike Nelson also indicated that there was real interest in a software-based
escrow system instead of the hardware-based SKIPJACK standard
[material ommitted by G Cook]
----
Gore and Kapor
agreed that the Advisory Council should be used to have a serious dialogue
about encryption policy. Given Gore's departure from the current Clipper
proposals, there might actually be something to talk about.
==========
NOTE: This DOES NOT mean that Clipper is going away." [End of Weitzner statement]
Then Mike Nelson in a message to the Interesting People list to which these
remarks had been posted issued a CORECTION to Weitzner's remarks:
Nelson wrote:
"Correction:
Gore said the Clipper proposal can be improved. (We all know that!) He
didn't indicate he was walking away from the idea or ***that he was
reconsidering decisions he and other top officials made less than 10 days
ago.***
Michael R. Nelson
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
____________________
I have added the emphasis to Nelson's last sentence. The impression that it
left me with was that Nelson was saying or certainly IMPLYING that Al Gore had
been misquotted by Weitzner and hence also by Levin.
This seems to me like a rather disingenous attempt to apply some spin to
remarks that perhaps Nelson and maybe Gore didn't want to get to the net as a
whole. The damage is done, but now lets waffle and try to shed some doubt on
the statement that Gore doesn't like the escrow agents.
Question is WHY go to such lengths why you have two people independently BOTH
saying that Gore thought the choice of escrow agents was lousy. If such a
statement by Gore isn't a reconsideration of a key decision made by Mr. Gore
less than ten days ago, what is it?
What's the story Mike? Will you say that your statement holds because Gore
backed off from a decision made by LOW Level officials? And Mike Dan
Weitzner's statement **never** left any impression that the administration was
walking away from Clipper. Dan concluded:
"==========
NOTE: This DOES NOT mean that Clipper is going away.""
Now Mike, how could he be much more clear than this?
Seems to me to be impolite that you are trying to blow smoke in our faces.
Corrections like your's don't increase my level of trust in what this
adminsitration is doing behind closed doors.
If I have misunderstood you Mike, I'll be glad to hear where or why.
_____________________________________________________________
THE REMAINDER OF THIS POST IS THE TEXT FROM WHICH I HAVE DRAW THIS ANALYSIS
AND HENCE MAYBE SAFELY SKIPPED BY MOST READERS.
National Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee met today in
Washington at the Old Executive Office Building. In comments made after a
question and answer period, Vice President Al Gore said that key escrow
policy announced last Friday (2/4/94) had serious flaws and that he hope
the issue of who holds the keys and under what terms would be given more
serious, careful consideration.
Gore made it clear that some amount of control of cryptography technology
was necessary for national security. However, the key escrow policies
announced by the Departments of Justice, Commerce & State, and the NSA,
were "low level decisions" that got out before thorough analysis. In a
conversation with Mitchell Kapor, Esther Dyson, and Mike Nelson (of the
White House Staff), Gore said that he would prefer that the keys be held by
some part of the Judiciary branch, or perhaps even by trusted, private
escrow agents. He made it clear that he believed that the escrow agents
named in last Friday's announcement (National Institute of Standards &
Technology and the Treasure Department) were no appropriate key holders.
Mike Nelson also indicated that there was real interest in a software-based
escrow system instead of the hardware-based SKIPJACK standard
----
Gore and Kapor
agreed that the Advisory Council should be used to have a serious dialogue
about encryption policy. Given Gore's departure from the current Clipper
proposals, there might actually be something to talk about.
==========
NOTE: This DOES NOT mean that Clipper is going away.
------
Under the Clipper plan, the keys would be stored at the
Treasury Department and the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST), which is part of the Commerce Department.
Both Treasury and Commerce are from the same branch of
government, the executive branch.
"When I saw that I said, 'Wow. Wow. That is not right,' and
I raised hell about that," Gore said in an interview Thursday.
Having the key holders from the same branch of government
raises concern because there is no system of checks and
balances, Gore said. "That's going to be changed," he said.
Clipper gives law-enforcement agencies a key to eavesdrop on
telephone and computer communications under a court order.
The selection of NIST and Treasury "was spun out of the
process at the low level and was not vetted at the top," Gore
said. Gore's comments were made after appearing before the first
meeting of a private sector advisory panel on the development of
a "national information infrastructure" in Washington, D.C.
---------
>From: farber@central.cis.upenn.edu (David Farber)
Subject: Comment from Mike Nelson re EFF report on VP Gore's comments. [ I was
n
ot there , all I do is distribute reports and corrections :-) .. djf (iced
in]
Precedence: list
To: interesting-people@eff.org (interesting-people mailing list)
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 13:40:40 -0800 (PST)
>From: Mike Nelson <mnelson@ostp.eop.gov>
To: David Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>
Cc: interesting-people mailing list <interesting-people@eff.org>
Correction:
Gore said the Clipper proposal can be improved. (We all know that!) He
didn't indicate he was walking away from the idea or that he was
reconsidering decisions he and other top officials made less than 10 days
ago.
Michael R. Nelson
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
