Re: Golden Coy Freeh

["R. J. Harvey" <harveyrj@vt.edu>]

At 06:10 PM 9/25/95 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote:
>On Mon, 25 Sep 1995, John Young wrote:
>> 
>>    Last week, Mr. Freeh stressed that he preferred a voluntary
>>    approach. But "if consensus is impossible" on the
>>    encryption issue, he said, the F.B.I. might consider other
>>    approaches.
>> 
>
>I think it *tremendously* disturbing that the F.B.I. suddenly thinks 
>itself part of the Legislative branch, able to make law and dictate 
>policy to the rest of the country.
>
>In fact there is a plague of this kind of thing, law making in the wrong 
>channels, as if the executive agencies in the United States were suddenly 
>able to implement their own law.
>
   Today I attended the Telecommunications Conference here in Blacksburg 
sponsored by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), in which an interesting cast of
characters
(including Clarence Irving, Asst Secretary of Commerce for Telecommunication 
Policy, and presidents and Sr. VPs of Sprint, Time-Warner, GTE, Bell Atlantic)
served as panelists.  One purpose of the conference was to discuss the upcoming 
conference committee that will try to reconcile the House and Senate telco
reform 
bills (which Boucher will likely be on).  After hearing each of these folks
stress 
the importance of competitiveness, privacy, and security, during the Q&A
session I 
asked the panel what they thought about the likelihood of
government-mandated key 
escrow, which the FBI and others are likely to push.  
   Only Boucher stood up to address the question, and he offered a forceful
denunciation of the entire logic of mandated escrow, citing the litany of
reasons
against it, including the observation that it was ridiculous from a
competitiveness
standpoint, noting that no foreign customers would ever buy such systems because
of the fear that, among others, "the CIA would be reading their mail."  He
hastened
to note that although he felt strongly that in the current congress the
calls for
mandatory key escrow would go nowhere, "things could look very different"
after the
next round of elections.  The guy from Commerce had nothing to say on the
question.

rj
 
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R. J. Harvey               email:  harveyrj@vt.edu
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