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[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Feds say keystroke logger details are covered by "national security"
- To: debate@lists.fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] (Fwd) FC: Feds say keystroke logger details are covered by "national security"
- From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>
- Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 18:25:16 +0200
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 07:26:13 -0400
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: politech@politechbot.com
Subject: FC: Feds say keystroke logger details are covered by "national security"
Send reply to: declan@well.com
The FBI's Kerr has been named the CIA's next deputy director for
science and technology:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30341-2001Aug3.html
EPIC has placed the documents online:
http://www.epic.org/crypto/scarfo.html
---
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45851,00.html
Feds: Spy Tool Is a Secret
By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
2:00 a.m. Aug. 7, 2001 PDT
The U.S. government has invoked national security to argue that
details of a new electronic surveillance technique must remain
secret.
Justice Department attorneys told a federal judge overseeing the
prosecution of an alleged mobster that public disclosure of a
classified keystroke logger would imperil ongoing investigations of
"foreign intelligence agents" and endanger the lives of U.S.
agents.
In court documents (PDF) filed Friday, the Justice Department
claims that such stringent secrecy is necessary to prevent "hostile
intelligence officers" from employing "counter-surveillance tactics
to thwart law enforcement."
[...]
Donald Kerr, the director of the FBI's lab, said in an affidavit
filed Friday that "there are only a limited number of effective
techniques available to the FBI to cope with encrypted data, one of
which is the 'key logger system.'" He said that if criminals find
out how the logger works, they can readily circumvent it.
The feds believe so strongly in keeping this information secret
that they've said they may invoke the Classified Information
Procedures Act if necessary. The 1980 law says that the government
may say that evidence requires "protection against unauthorized
disclosure for reasons of national security."
If that happens, not only are observers barred from the courtroom,
but the trial could move to a classified location. Federal
regulations say that if a courtroom is not sufficiently secure,
"the court shall designate the facilities of another United States
Government agency" as the location for the trial.
But the FBI's Kerr said that CIPA's extreme procedures aren't good
enough. Says Kerr: "Even disclosure under the protection of the
court ... cannot guarantee that the technique will not be
compromised.... To assume otherwise may well lead to the compromise
of criminal and national security investigations, and, in some
cases, threaten the lives of FBI or other government agency
personnel."
[...]
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