Wiretap and FTC/FCC net-regulation legislation, from HotWired

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 05:57:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Subject: Congress' wiretap and FTC/FCC net-regulation bills, from HotWired

http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/40/index1a.html

HotWired
The Netizen

"Sure, Walter Scott"

by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
Washington, DC, 30 September

   When Parade, that ever-so-offline Sunday magazine, announces that
   Iranian terrorists use the Internet and unbreakable encryption to plan
   bombings, you know that anti-Net fearmongering has outgrown the
   Beltway and is gunning for Middle America.
             
   On the page facing an advertisement for a gilded 18-inch porcelain
   cherubim (US$97.96, if you must know), columnist Walter Scott wrote
   yesterday that Iranian terrorists have "stopped using the phone" in
   favor of the Internet. Then he quoted an unnamed "expert on
   international terrorism" who claims that terrorists have outsmarted
   the spooks: "Just when we thought we had outsmarted them, they caught
   on and started using codes on the Internet.... There's so much crazy
   screwball stuff on the Internet that it's practically impossible to
   track down and isolate the terrorists." Scott did not return phone
   calls.
                 
   Small wonder, with fantastic columns like Scott's, that in the waning
   days of the 104th Congress our elected representatives have failed to
   do the right thing by the Net.
          
   A conspicuous lack of congressional spine made it almost inevitable
   that Capitol Hill would cave in to the demands of the White House and
   the Justice Department over the weekend and agree to yank portions of
   the FBI's national wiretap plan that limited the snooping powers of   
   the Feds. On Saturday, this Digital Telephony slush fund cleared the
   House as part of an elephantine six-agency spending bill and the
   Senate approved it today.
   
   Earlier this month both the House and Senate declined to act on bills
   that would lift the encryption export embargo. Supporters of the   
   measures were outflanked by Nebraska senator Jim Exon's    
   intra-committee maneuvering and the anti-terrorism rhetoric of Jamie
   Gorelick, the deputy attorney general. Gorelick said last week at a  
   hearing before the House Judiciary Committee that the DOJ is        
   "concerned about the proliferation of unbreakable encryption" that 
   might fall into the hands of "terrorists, organized crime, and foreign
   intelligence agents." (She doesn't like to admit that PGP is already
   available around the world.)
             
   True, some of the more Net-friendly legislators have tried to help.
   Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana) emerged as a champion of netizens'
   privacy rights with his encryption bill, Pro-CODE. Representative Rick
   White (R-Washington) introduced a bill that would let ISPs give free
   online time to political candidates - but even though the House passed
   the bill last Thursday, the Senate will not.
               
   In another kind of congressional schizophrenia, one measure would give
   the Federal Trade Commission authority to regulate the Internet -
   while another bill blocks the Federal Communications Commission from
   even thinking about it.

   White attached an amendment to the FCC Modernization Act - an act that
   completely denies the commission jurisdiction "with respect to content
   or other regulation of the Internet or other interactive computer
   services." The House Republicans passed it over the objections of the
   Dems on 12 September, but it's still stuck in committee.
        
   White had tried to insert this amendment in the 1996 Telecom Act, but
   it was sliced out. Now he's trying again. "He believes that the
   federal government gets a little overzealous in regulation," says
   Connie Correll, White's press secretary. "We're dealing with a new
   medium that people aren't too familiar with."
           
   An FCC policy analyst says the commission "doesn't want to regulate
   the Net" but that "White's language would be a mistake." The analyst,
   who wished to remain anonymous, said: "For example, would the FCC be
   barred from creating regulations to protect privacy online, or from
   preempting state laws and regulations that criminalize online        
   indecency?" 
   
   Then late last week, Representative Bob Franks (R-New Jersey) coughed
   up his own Net-regulation bill. It's designed to respond to the outcry
   over the Lexis-Nexis P-TRAK database by halting the spread of Social 
   Security numbers. Inexplicably, it does that by letting the FTC      
   "examine and investigate" ISPs and issue "cease and desist" orders    
   against them if they serve as an SSN-distribution conduit.          
   
   I called up Frank DiStefano from Franks' office. "Why hold ISPs
   liable?" I asked him. "In June, the FTC itself decided to hold off
   from Net regulation.. If someone is giving out another person's       
   personal information, why not let the courts decide if he's violating
   the law?"
   
   "OK, you've convinced me," said DiStefano. He said the reason the FTC
   provisions were in the bill was "to make a point" and his office    
   "would work on this over the recess." 
   
   No doubt - until Parade calls for the FTC to crack down on          
   narco-terrorists selling Social Security numbers online.

---

Some links:

   Linkname: Brock Meeks on FEC reform, Rep. White's bill
        URL: http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/18/index5a.html

   Linkname: Democrats vote in committee to let FCC regulate Net
        URL:             
          http://www2.eff.org/pub/Legislation/Bills_by_sponsor/white_fcc_
          noregulation_1996.vote

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