WHITE HOUSE TO RETHINK CLIPPER

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SUBJECT:  PRESSURE GROWING ON WHITE HOUSE TO RETHINK CLIPPER CHIP POLICY
SOURCE:   Inside Washington via Fulfillment by INDIVIDUAL, Inc.
DATE:     June 30, 1994
INDEX:    [5]
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  WASHINGTON TELECOM WEEK via INDIVIDUAL, Inc. : The White House came under
increased pressure this week to withdraw its controversial Clipper Chip
encryption proposal when the policy arm of a major computing society
attacked the plan. The U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for
Computing Machinery (USACM) said in a position paper that "communications
security is too important to be left to secret processes and classified
algorithms."

  USACM said that Clipper would put U.S. manufacturers at a competitive
disadvantage in the global market and would adversely affect technological
development within the United States.

  A statement by USACM pointed out that the Clipper technology has been
championed by the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the National Security
Agency. These agencies maintain that "non-escrowed" encryption technology
threatens law enforcement and national security.

  "As a body concerned with the development of government technology policy,
USACM is troubled by the process that gave rise to the Clipper initiative,"
said Barbara Simons, a computer scientist with IBM, in a statement. Simons,
who chairs the ACM committee, added that it is "vitally important that
privacy protection for communications networks be developed openly and with
full public participation.

  The Clipper Chip, also known as the Escrowed Encryption Standard, raises
fundamental policy issues, according to the analysis. After reviewing a new
study by the ACM, the USACM makes the following recommendations:

  - The Administration should withdraw the Clipper Chip proposal and begin
an open and public review of encryption policy. The escrowed encryption
initiative raises vital issues of privacy, law enforcement, competitiveness
and scientific innovation that must be openly discussed.

  - The Administration should encourage the development of technologies and
institutional practices that will provide real privacy for future users of
the National Information Infrastructure.

  - Public policies and technical standards should be developed for
communications security in open forums in which all stakeholders --
government, industry and the public -- participate. Because the nation is
moving rapidly to open networks, a prerequisite for the success of those
networks must be standards for which there is widespread consensus,
including international acceptance. "The USACM believes that communications
security is too important to be left to secret processes and classified
algorithms. We support the principles underlying the Computer Security Act
of 1987, in which Congress expressed its preference for the development of
open and unclassified security standards."

  - Any encryption standard adopted by the U.S. government should not place
U.S. manufacturers at a disadvantage in the global market or adversely
affect technological development within the Untied States. Few other nations
are likely to adopt a standard that includes a classified algorithm and keys
escrowed with the U.S. government.

  - Change the process of developing Federal Information Processing
Standards (FIPS) employed by the National Institute of Standards &
Technology. This process is currently predicated on the use of such
standards solely to support federal procurement. Increasingly, the standards
set through the FIPS process directly affect non-federal organizations and
the public at large.

  The USACM said that the vast majority of comments solicited by the
National Institute for Standards and Technology opposed the standard but
were openly ignored. The standard therefore should be placed under the
Administrative Procedures Act so that citizens may have the same opportunity
to challenge government actions in the area of information processing as
they do in other important aspects of federal agency policymaking. -- Joe
Burey

[06-30-94 at 17:05 EDT, Copyright 1994, Inside Washington, File:
w0630041.6ip]