Re: key escrow idea from David Satelin of MIT Lincoln Labs

[Matt Blaze <mab@research.att.com>]

[Please include me on any mail you want me to see, as I don't
read the cypherpunks list these days]

>
>>In Staelin's proposal government gains access to the communications,
>>but does not gain "real-time access" as desired by the FBI.  This loss
>>may be tolerable, given the benefit obtained (forcing access to be
>>made in accordance with the Constitutional requirements for
>>notification before search).
>
>It sounds like you're saying that the government must inform the target of 
>the wiretap BEFORE doing it.  ("notification before search")  Right?  That 
>would at least be better than the status quo.
>
You may be confused.  I hope it was clear that I didn't write that.
That text was part of the message from Ron Rivest that I included in my
message.
>
...

>>------- End of Forwarded Message
>>
>
...

>As far as I'm aware, if the police serve an ordinary search warrant at a 
>particular address, they  can't prohibit the targets of that warrant from 
>telling anyone else of this.  It seems to me that the main reason police 
>have gotten used to the idea of doing search warrants secretly is that the 
>local phonecos have been monopolies so long, and they're so used to 
>cooperating with government and the cops (as evidenced by the fact that 
>police regularly got illegal wiretaps before 1968), that this has soaked in 
>as being expected.  Indeed, the pre-'68 illegal wiretaps prove beyond a 
>shadow of a doubt that government and the telephone company never have had 
>any sort of arm's-length relationship, and strongly suggest that the 
>Constitutionality of wiretapping (vis a vis the constitutionality of 
>phoneco's claimed responsibility to keep the whole thing secret) has never 
>been legitimately tested.
>
>Remember, since the phoneco has had no competition, they've never been at 
>risk from being shunned by customers who object to this secret cooperation.  
>A more "realistic" position, I think, would be to conclude that if there was 
>true competition, customers would be able to negotiate varying levels of 
>non-cooperation in order to win customers.  I suspect that post-Ruby 
>Ridge/post-Waco, there would be a substantial fraction of the public who 
>would conclude that it cannot trust its own government.
>

Well, I don't know what went on before 1968, but these days phone companies
don't keep wiretap orders secret because they are being nice to the police,
they keep them secret because the court order for the weretap also orders
them to.  Perhaps you aren't aware of this, but when a third party  is
ordered to turn over records or access to something, the order often
includes a provision that prohibits them from revealing the order to the
subject.  This is not unique to phone records; orders for bank records
frequently have secrecy provisions as well.

-matt