Ringing Dingaling Rebuttal

["L. Detweiler" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>]

Here's a cypherpunkesque rebuttal of the recent article.


===cut=here===

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 93 08:39:11 -0400
From: shap@viper.cis.upenn.edu (Jonathan Shapiro)
To: denning@cs.cosc.georgetown.edu
Subject: Re: Wiretap Article


Dorothy:

Recently you sent out a piece of mail providing information on wiretap
laws in connection with the Clipper chip.  I wish to draw to your
attention that the laws concerning wiretapping are largely irrelevant
to the issue at hand, and why.

Let us assume that the wiretap laws as they stand are sound (I do not
believe this, but it doesn't matter).  Let us ignore the fact that the
new Attorney General was recently asked to sign a large pile of blank
warrants in the interests of "National Security," and rightly went
through the roof.

Let us further imagine that the system is Good, and that the likes
likes of McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard M. Nixon, G. Gordon Liddy,
and Ollie North are gone forever.  In fact, let's go so far as to
ignore that as the Federal Government grows and grows it is a
_necessary_ consequence that we will encounter more such people.

Let us ignore the abridgements of the First Amendment rights of
encryption technologists during the '60s and '70s by the NSA, and
discount their bleatings as the reactions of alarmists.

Finally, let us imagine that the timing of the munitions investigation
into Pretty Good Privacy is entirely accidental, and that this does
not amount to an attempt to make the only viable alternative
encryption technology illegal de facto.  As a personal matter, I'm
inclined to grant this point because the agencies involved are too
disorganized to have successfully coordinated.

Government is _not_ intrinsically evil.  It _is_ intrinsically amoral.
The propriety of a government is only as sound as its weakest member
in a position of relevant power.  We can sometimes catch the offenders
and subject them to due process, but doing so does not compensate
their victims for their abuses.

To be sure, this term's politicos are swearing themselves stupid
promising that other encryption technologies will not be outlawed.  By
them.  Of course, the policies change from term to term, and the
guarantees of this group of people are therefore irrelevant to the
long term.

The question, you see, is not _whether_ the Clipper technology will be
abused, but _how_soon_.

The lessons of history, Ms. Denning, are best not forgotten.


Jonathan S. Shapiro
Synergistic Computing Associates