http://www2.pcy.mci.net/whats-new/editors/meeks/index.html

[alan pugh <alan.pugh@internetmci.com>]

mostly old news for the readers here, but relevant to the list.
this was found at the net editors off of mci's webpage.

> 
> The Assault on Private Encryption
> 
> by Brock N. Meeks
> 
> Washington, DC -- The other shoe has dropped now, several times.
> 
> The political backlash and emotional fallout of the bombing of the
> federal building in Oklahoma City still lingers here. FBI Director
> Louis Freeh is using that event as a lever to wage a kind of private
> war against the use of private encryption schemes.
> 
> According to Administration sources, several different proposals are
> now being discussed on how the government might go about implementing
> a policy of government mandated, government "certified" encryption.
> The most hardline of these proposals would outlaw your ability to
> choose an encryption scheme which the government couldn't break, under
> the authority of a court order.
> 
> Freeh has left no doubts that his next target -- after successfully
> getting Congress to pass the $500 million Digital Telephony Bill,
> which gives law enforcement agencies an "easy access" method of
> eavesdropping on telephone conversations-- his is private encryption.
> 
> During an appropriations hearing in May, Freeh told a congressional
> panel: "[W]e're in favor of strong encryption, robust encryption. The
> country needs it, industry needs it. We just want to make sure we have
> a trap door and key under some judge's authority where we can get
> there if somebody is planning a crime."
> 
> That means an end any non-government approved encryption technology
> that doesn't have some means of providing the Feds with it's treasured
> "back door." Under this scheme, for example, the widely-used Pretty
> Good Privacy (PGP) encryption program would be, essentially, illegal
> to own or at least, illegal for a U.S. citizen to use inside U.S.
> borders.
> 
> Private encryption schemes allow a person to scramble an electronic
> message so that, if intercepted by an unintended party, it is rendered
> unreadable. These scrambling programs are useful to a wide range of
> people and interests, including researchers that want to keep their
> proprietary breakthroughs safe from prying eyes to corporations
> sending trade secrets to a distant office across the Net to ordinary
> folks sending a steamy love letter to a lover.
> 
> But these same encryption programs are being used by "terrorists and
> international drug traffickers," as well, claims FBI Director Freeh,
> and that makes private encryption schemes a threat to national
> security.
> 
> Freeh's crusade against encryption is being backed by been joined the
> Justice Department, with the gleeful back alley goading of the
> nation's top spook group, the National Security Agency.
> 
> To meet the "challenges of terrorism," Freeh said, several things must
> be done, among them, deal with "encryption capabilities available to
> criminals and terrorists" because such technology endangers "the
> future usefulness of court-authorized wiretaps. This problem must be
> resolved."
> 
> While Freeh has used the Oklahoma City bombing as convenient "news
> hook" to again make a pitch to "resolve" the private encryption
> "problem," the Director was basically reading from a dog-eared script.
> Within the last several months he has repeatedly testified publicly
> before Congress about the "evils" of encryption.
> 
> On March 30 the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime he
> said:
> 
> "Even though access is all but assured [by the passage of the Digital
> Wiretap Act] an even more difficult problem with court-authorized
> wiretaps looms. Powerful encryption is becoming commonplace. The drug
> cartels are buying sophisticated communications equipment.... This, as
> much as any issue, jeopardizes the public safety and national security
> of this country. Drug cartels, terrorists, and kidnappers will use
> telephones and other communications media with impunity knowing that
> their conversations are immune from our most valued investigative
> technique."
> 
> Then during a May 3 appearance before the same Committee, Freeh said:
> "Encryption capabilities available to criminals and terrorists, both
> now and in days to come, must be dealt with promptly. We will not have
> an effective counterterrorism strategy if we do not solve the problem
> of encryption."
> 
> But there's nothing to be alarmed at here, according to Freeh. Just
> because he's asking the Congress and the White House to strip you of
> the right to choose how you scramble your messages, using a program
> that the government doesn't hold all the keys too, doesn't mean that
> the Director isn't a sensitive guy or that he has suddenly taken a
> liking to wearing jackboots.
> 
> Freeh steadfastly maintains all these new powers he's asking for are
> simply "tools" and "not new authorities." These new powers are "well
> within the Constitution," Freeh told Congress.
> 
> Freeh hasn't publicly outlined just how he proposes to "resolve" the
> "encryption problem." However, according to an FBI source, several
> plans are in the works. The source refused to detail any specific
> plan, but added: "Let's just say everything is on the table." Does
> that include outlawing private encryption schemes? "I said
> 'everything,'" the source said.
> 
> The encryption debate has been raging for years. Two years ago the
> Clinton Administration unveiled a new policy in which it proposed to
> flood the market with its own home-grown encryption devices -- a
> product of the National Security Agency -- called the "Clipper Chip."
> 
> The Clipper is based on a "key-escrow" system. Two government agencies
> would hold the keys "in escrow", which are unique to each chip, in a
> kind of "data vault." Any time the FBI-- or your local sheriff --
> wanted to tap your phone conversations, they would have to ask a judge
> to give the two government agencies to turn over the keys to you
> Clipper chip. With those keys, the FBI could then unscramble any of
> your conversations at will.
> 
> That policy raised a huge firestorm of controversy and the Clipper
> sunk from sight, down, but not out. The intent of the White House,
> acting as a front man for the NSA and other intelligence agencies
> along with the FBI, was to have Americans adopt Clipper voluntarily