Re: Britain to control crypto - official (fwd from Usenet)

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 07:38 PM 6/17/96 -0400, Simon Spero wrote:

>4) Will LEAs be permitted to impersonate a non-consenting third party
>for the purposes of allowing a conversation to be intercepted?
>(blatant violation of the 4th ammendme... oh shit- never mind).

You may recall discussions on CP many months ago concerning the extent to 
which an Internet provider would be obligated to obey a cop with a warrant 
who asks for (for example) a "data wiretap" of a customer.  I happen to 
believe that one of the things that's going to have to be settled, and 
settled soon, is a ban on governments coercing people (ISP's, etc) to 
violate their contracts with others.

If my ISP enters into a contract with me to (among other things) tell me if 
my data is tapped, OR he agrees to send me a certification of non-tap status 
daily as long as it's valid and cease sending them when tapping starts, etc, 
presumably if he fulfils his part of the agreement I will soon learn of a 
tap.  

One of the things that was particularly important to the Founding Fathers 
was what they referred to as "Impairment of Contracts," which meant as I 
recall the act of government passing laws and rules which affect my ability 
to contract with you.  Not surprisingly, they didn't like that, such 
restrictions.  If their desires were respected, presumably there would be no 
way for the government to come between two contractors to get one to betray 
the other.


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com