[FYI] (Fwd) Congress mulls crypto restrictions in response to attack

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Thu, 13 Sep 2001 16:59:26 -0400
To:             	cryptography@wasabisystems.com
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	Congress mulls crypto restrictions in response to attacks



http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46816,00.html

    Congress Mulls Stiff Crypto Laws
    By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
    1:45 p.m. Sep. 13, 2001 PDT

    WASHINGTON -- The encryption wars have begun.

    For nearly a decade, privacy mavens have been worrying that a
    terrorist attack could prompt Congress to ban
    communications-scrambling products that frustrate both police
    wiretaps and U.S. intelligence agencies.

    Tuesday's catastrophe, which shed more blood on American soil than
    any event since the Civil War, appears to have started that
    process.

    Some politicians and defense hawks are warning that extremists
    such as Osama bin Laden, who U.S. officials say is a
    crypto-aficionado and the top suspect in Tuesday's attacks, enjoy
    unfettered access to privacy-protecting software and hardware that
    render their communications unintelligible to eavesdroppers.

    In a floor speech on Thursday, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire)
    called for a global prohibition on encryption products without
    backdoors for government surveillance.

    "This is something that we need international cooperation on and
    we need to have movement on in order to get the information that
    allows us to anticipate and prevent what occurred in New York and
    in Washington," Gregg said, according to a copy of his remarks
    that an aide provided.

    President Clinton appointed an ambassador-rank official, David
    Aaron, to try this approach, but eventually the administration
    abandoned the project.

    Gregg said encryption makers "have as much at risk as we have at
    risk as a nation, and they should understand that as a matter of
    citizenship, they have an obligation" to include decryption
    methods for government agents. Gregg, who previously headed the
    appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department,
    said that such access would only take place with "court
    oversight."

    [...]

    Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, a hawkish think
    tank that has won accolades from all recent Republican presidents,
    says that this week's terrorist attacks demonstrate the government
    must be able to penetrate communications it intercepts.

    "I'm certainly of the view that we need to let the U.S. government
    have access to encrypted material under appropriate circumstances
    and regulations," says Gaffney, an assistant secretary of defense
    under President Reagan.

    [...]

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