NPR Clipper Transcript

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

National Public Radio Broadcast

28APR94 Morning Edition

@ approx :20 past the first/third hour


Bob Edwards (?):
... in the age of digital communication: the debate over encryption
technology ... first, headlines from Carl Castle ....


[Headline News]


BE:
The new era of digital communication has brought with it some very thorny
problems concerning personal privacy.  Three months ago, the Clinton
administration announced a new encryption technology, called the "Clipper
Chip" --- a device that encodes voice communications so that eavesdroppers
can't understand what's being said.  Privacy advocates are angry because
the government will keep the keys to the Clipper Chip code, enabling the
National Security Agency and the FBI to listen in.  Critics say the
Clipper policy will threaten privacy in the soon-to-be-deployed information
technology on which the messages will include very personal documents and
highly sensitive business communications.  Next week, committees in both
the Senate and the House will hold hearings on the controversy.  NPR's
John McChesney (sp) reports.

JMcC:
Today's digital encryption technology is so good that it's made law
enforcement officials fearful that they're about to lose the wire tapping
capabilities they already have.  That's the reason the Clinton
administration has proposed new technology that will keep law enforcement
in the loop, so to speak.  Clipper is part of what the administration
hopes will become a new encryption standard.  Jeff Greibledinger heads
the Justice Department's Narcotics Division.

JG:
Clipper can be put into telephone or fax or similar hardware and provides
extraordinarily strong encryption, using an algorithm that's been in use
by the government now for a number of years.

JMcC:
Two people conversing will be able to activate Clipper encryption on
their telephones, so that to an eavesdropper their conversation will be
meaningless gibberish.  In fact, Clipper's code is so complex, the
government says it needs to keep the key, so that it can unlock the
code and listen in if it thinks the laws are being broken.  Thus the
controversy, and there's a virtual canyon of difference between the
government and privacy advocates, with both sides painting dark,
disturbing visions of our digital future.  Federal officials warn that
the information super highway could become a lawless road, travelled
by terrorist conspirators and kiddie porn merchants peddling their
sordid wares over global networks, while lawmen are left standing by
in uncomprehending helplessness.  Civil libertarians, on the other
hand, foresee a nearly omniscient government able to dip at will into
the digital pipelines and pull up data containing the most intimate
details of our personal and professional lives.

JPB:
The problem with cyberspace is that essentially every time you do
anything there, you leave some kind of data trail.

JMcC:
John Perry Barlow writes about digital technology for Wired Magazine.

JPB:
In the physical world, you've got walls and doors that you can lock.
But, you know, in the virtual world everything you do is visible except
that which you explicitly make invisible.  And the only way in which
you can make things invisible is by using cryptography.  And the only
way in which you can make them invisible to the government is by
using the strong cryptography that they don't want you to have.

JMcC:
The government may not *want* you to have strong encryption, but so
far it hasn't said that you *can't* have it.  Strong, private
encryption software, to which the government will *not* have a key,
will still be available on the domestic market.  Administration
spokesmen insist that Clipper, and other government data encryption
standards yet to come, will be strictly voluntary.  But that's a
straddle that appears to have satisfied no one.  Critics say that
nobody with criminal intentions would be stupid enough to use the
codes that the government has keys to.  And others say that the
administration is being disingenuous --- that it's using the levers
of government to ensure that Clipper becomes *the* standard.  One
such skeptic is Jerry Berman of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.

JB:
The government, while it says it's a voluntary system, they are
determined to drive the market, to use government buying power to
make this a defacto standard.  If every government agency, the IRS,
Treasury, and the Health Care System use Clipper Chip, there will
be a tremendous market incentive to move towards Clipper as a
potential standard.  Second of all, they are making it very difficult
for other encryption schemes to compete on the market by continuing
to hold that any powerful encryption scheme available in the United
States cannot be exported.  It's a munition.  It's a weapon.

JMcC:
The export restriction has infuriated the American software industry,
which says it stands to lose more than $6 billion each year it's in
effect.  But it's the potential loss of privacy, rather than the
loss of profit, that will undoubtedly remain at the center of the
Clipper debate.  Government backers of Clipper say there are sufficient
legal restraints now in place to prevent illegal invasions of our
privacy.  Again, the Justice Department's Jeff Greibledinger:

JG:
A wiretap without lawful authorization is a Federal felony offense,
punishable by up to five years in prison.  That's true right now, even
for unencrypted communications.  It will be no less true in the future,
when encryption is available.

JMcC:
Greibledinger says the Clipper system would make it even harder for
government officials to gather information illegally.  They key to
each Clipper chip's code will be split into two parts, which will be
held in escrow by two separate government agencies.  A wiretap order
would have to include separate, documented applications to these two
agencies for the keys.  But skeptics say that the excesses of the FBI
under J. Edgar Hoover should be kept in mind during this debate.  They
also point out that modern digital technology is changing the terms of
the debate about privacy.  In the first place, there will be a lot
more information about our private lives on the networks of the future
than there is on the phone lines of today.  And secondly, as critics
like Jerry Berman point out, powerful computers connected to digital
networks greatly increase the efficiency of spying, making it possible
instantly to pull together a detailed personal portrait of any citizen.

JB:
What kind mail you're sending and to whom
What kind of telephone calls you're making and to whom
What kind of banking transactions and where you are, and
What kind of vacation you're taking and
What kind of movies you're watching --- all at the same time.

JMcC:
And all of the information surging through the digital pipelines of the
future can be far more easily searched than could the mail and telephone
calls of the past.  Stanford Professor Martin Hellman, a noted pioneer
in cryptographic technology, who opposes Clipper, says old-time wire
taps required an expensive human being to monitor each and every call.

MH:
But once you have information in computer readable form, you can scan
approximately 10 billion words for $1.  You heard me right --- 10 billion
words for $1!  So the fact that we're going to computer readable
information makes this much more dangerous.

JMcC:
Vermont's Senator Patrick Leahy heads a Senate Technology Sub-Committee
that will hold hearings on the Clipper chip next week.  He worries that
concern about Clipper could slow down the deployment of the broadband
communications networks the administration has been promoting.

PL:
We've had already some 48,000 people sign on to an electronic petition
through Internet to say they're against it.  The administration has set
off alarms that probably they didn't need to set off, in some instances.
Because I don't think that they laid the groundwork for this at all.
And in some other areas, they've set off alarms that so far do not have
adequate answers.

JMcC:
Nearly everyone agrees that the stakes in this debate are high --- finding
the proper balance point between privacy and public safety in the digital
age.  Some observers believe that the Clinton administration may be
softening its stand on Clipper now.  Administration spokesmen are
emphasizing that they've solicited alternative ideas from the computer
and software industries.  In San Francisco, I'm John McChesney reporting.

BE:
The time is 29 minutes past the hour.

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Transcribed by Lois Frissell