NYT: House Panel Rejects FBI Plan on Encryption

[Rigo Wenning <wenning2@rz.uni-sb.de>]

Die Verfechter eines Kryptoverbot in den USA haben 
einen Rückschlag erlitten, aber der Kampf wird weitergehen, 
solange das Gesetzesprojekt zur Exportfreigabe im 
parlamentarischen Verfahren ist.

Rigo



>Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 06:03:53 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Margarita Lacabe <marga@derechos.org>
>Subject: NYT: House Panel Rejects FBI Plan on Encryption
>To: Global Internet Liberty Campaign <gilc-plan@gilc.org>
>Reply-To: gilc-plan@gilc.org
>
>September 25, 1997
>
>House Panel Rejects FBI Plan on Encryption
>
>By JERI CLAUSING 
>
>WASHINGTON The House Commerce Committee put the brakes on a
>fast-moving plan to put the first-ever domestic controls on data
>scrambling technology, rejecting 35 to 16 an Federal Bureau of
>Investigation-backed proposal to require all American computers users
>to register the codes to their encrypted software.
>
>The vote after nearly four hours of emotional debate on the balance
>between constitutional rights and the need for tools to fight
>terrorists, pedophiles and drug cartels was hailed as a victory by
>software and communications industry groups, civil libertarians,
>scientists and lawyers who have been scrambling over the past few
>weeks to reverse the FBI's momentum in gutting the Safety and
>Freedom Through Encryption act, known as SAFE.
>
>"Today's vote to preserve the intent of HR-695 [SAFE] is a huge
>victory for users of communication technology and reaffirms the
>Fourth Amendment's validity in the information age," said Robert
>Holleyman, president of the a Business Software Alliance.
>
>"Although our forefathers could not have envisioned the technological
>developments that we have witnessed, even in the last decade, they
>understood the critical, timeless need for privacy and security."
>
>Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center for Democracy and
>Technology, said the bill essentially puts the bill in gridlock, but
>"we have bought time to make a convincing case. ... It's uphill, but
>we're not being steamrolled about this anymore."
>
>Introduced by Representatives Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican,
>and Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, SAFE was intended to ease
>current export controls on strong encryption and prohibit and key
>recovery systems, like a voluntary one that had been proposed by the
>Clinton administration.
>
>But after an initial groundswell of support and after defeating law
>enforcement and the administration in the House Judiciary and
>International Relations Committees, the SAFE act lost ground to a
>full-court press by the FBI and the National Security Agency. In a
>series of classified briefings, President Clinton's top crime
>fighters convinced many House members that they must go even beyond
>the White House proposal. House members, after the briefings,
>repeatedly said that they believed the FBI plan was needed to protect
>the country from terrorists, drug cartels and child pornographers on
>the Internet.
>
>That theme was echoed repeatedly in Wednesday's Commerce Committee
>hearing by Representative Michael Oxley, an Ohio Republican, and
>Thomas Manton, a New York Democrat, who pushed the FBI-backed
>amendment, which would have required all software sold in the United
>States after 1999 have a spare key giving law enforcement "immediate
>access."
>
>"Law abiding citizens have no reason to fear this," Oxley said.
>
>Two other House committees, National Security and Intelligence,
>backed the administration with amendments that would have
>strengthened export controls and required that law enforcement be
>able to, with the proper judicial approval, gain immediate access to
>all domestic encryption keys.
>
>Though no specific infrastructure or system for keeping the keys was
>proposed, Edward A. Allen, section chief of the FBI's Engineering
>Research Facility, said on Wednesday that the system the FBI
>envisions would require that all individual computer users register
>their encryption keys with a third party, like a certificate
>authority. Large companies could keep their own keys, as long as they
>were readily accessible.
>
>Civil rights groups and law professors around the country assailed
>such a plan as a clear violation of both First Amendment free speech
>rights and the Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search
>and seizure.
>
>The bill as adopted by the Commerce Committee is essentially the
>sixth version of the bill. In an attempt to address law enforcement
>concerns, the panel adopted an amendment by Representatives Edward J.
>Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Rick White, a Washington
>Republican, that would establish a "NET Center" under the Department
>of Justice in which industry and law enforcement scientists would
>work together to help law enforcement authorities break encrypted
>codes used in crimes.
>
>The amendment also would require a six-month study by the Department
>of Commerce's National Telecommunications Information Agency on the
>ramifications of mandatory key recovery and would double the criminal
>penalties for anyone who uses encryption to commit a felony.
>
>Another amendment, by Representative W.J. Tauzin, a Louisiana
>Republican, would require that a five-member panel of government,
>industry and law enforcement be appointed to study the controversial
>encryption issues issue and make recommendations to Congress within
>180 days after enactment of SAFE.
>
>"This gives us a lot of new momentum," Goodlatte said of the changes
>to the bill, which still has to go through the House Rules Committee
>to get to a floor vote.
>
>If the Rules Committee agrees to send the bill to the floor, it must
>first reconcile the various versions. And the Rules Committee
>chairman, Gerald H. Solomon, a New York Republican, in a letter to
>the Commerce Committee this week said he the bill would not move to
>the House floor without the Oxley amendment.
>
>"I think it makes it clear that we have the opportunity now to go to
>the floor, to go to the Rules Committee and point out that this is a
>serious issue not only from the standpoint of the business, but as
>many of the members in there noted, having strong encryption helps to
>fight crime and we want the good guys to have it, if the bad guys are
>already going to have it through other means," Goodlatte said.
>
>"Getting encryption in the hands of businesses and individuals in
>this country not only protects their privacy but also prevents crime
>of credit card theft, medical record theft ... keeps terrorists from
>breaking into the New York Stock Exchange."
>
>Markey said he is convinced that continued debate will only help the
>SAFE bill.
>
>"I could feel members swinging over towards the position that would
>offer Americans more privacy protections," he said. "And I think
>that is going to happen in every single public debate that is held on
>the issue. As a result we now have reached a new stage where the
>closed-door political strategizing has to be replaced by a public
>and honest discussion." 
>
>
>Margarita Lacabe - Derechos - marga@derechos.org - http://www.derechos.org
>____________________________________________________________________________
>
>"From pardon power unrestricted, comes impunity to delinquency in all shapes:
>from impunity to delinquency in all shapes, impunity to malefience in all
shapes:
>    from impunity to malefience in all shapes, dissolution of government:
>  from disolution of government, dissolution of political society".  Bentham
>
>