Re: Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of 1995 (fwd)

[Brian A. LaMacchia <bal@martigny.ai.mit.edu>]

   Date: Wed, 12 Jul 1995 15:28:25 -0400
   Subject: Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of 1995

   On June 27, Sen. Grassley introduced extensive criminal amendments to the
   federal racketeering act.  S. 974, the "Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of
   1995," would amend U.S. Code sections 18 USC 1961 (criminal RICO statute),
   18 USC 1030A (new section on computer crime), 18 USC 2515, 2516
   (wiretapping), and 42 USC 2000aa (Privacy Protection Act).

   This proposed legislation is Very Bad. It would make all encryption
   software posted to computer networks that are accessible to foreigners
   illegal *regardless of whether the NSA has classified the software as a
   munition!!!*  Here's the language:

    "Sec. 1030A.  Racketeering-related crimes involving computers
      "(a) It shall be unlawful--

   . . .

	 "(2) to distribute computer software that encodes or encrypts
       electronic or digital communications to computer networks that the
       person distributing knows, or reasonably should know, is accessible to
       foreign nationals and foreign governments, regardless of whether such
       software has been designated nonexportable."

It's much worse than this.  Look at the definition of "predicate act":

            `(b) For purposes of this section, each act of distributing
          software is considered a separate predicate act. Each instance in
          which nonexportable software is accessed by a foreign government, 
          an agent of a foreign government, a foreign national, or an agent 
          of a foreign national, shall be considered as a separate predicate
          act.

Now, since the bill also makes 1030A violations "racketeering
activities", all you need are two predicate acts and RICO comes into
play.  

Finally, we begin to see the attack on all forms of un-escrowed
encryption.  The bill provides an affirmable defense of
giving the keys to the government ahead of time!

            `(c) It shall be an affirmative defense to prosecution under this
          section that the software at issue used a universal decoding device
          or program that was provided to the Department of Justice prior to
          the distribution.'.

There are also some nice surprises related to wiretapping evidence
(would allow the gov't. to use the fruits of an illegal wiretap
conducted by a third party if the government didn't know about the
wiretap) and the Privacy Protection Act.

Get a copy of this bill from:

		ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/c104/s974.is.FTP

and read it.  

					--bal