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McCain Talks Crypto
This guy needs to connect to a clue server soon before it is too late...
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/story/4588.html
McCain Talks Crypto
by Todd Lappin
6:04pm 20.Jun.97.PDT Just got off the phone with Senator
John McCain.
It has been a big week for the Republican from
Arizona. On Monday, he and Senator Bob Kerrey
(D-Nebraska) dropped a bomb on the encryption
debate. They introduced S909, the Secure Public
Networks Act, a bill that would write into law most of
the Clinton administration's encryption policy -
leviathan key recovery system, continued restraints
on exporting strong encryption, the whole bit. Then,
leveraging his chairmanship of the Senate
Commerce Committee, he pushed the bill onto a
legislative fast track. Despite the fact that his bill cuts
the legs from under Pro-CODE - a bill by Montana
Republican Conrad Burns that would scrap the
export controls - McCain said he's eager to negotiate
on the issues.
Here are the highlights of our 5-minute conversation
- during which a certain two-word term was repeated
again and again. Let's see if you can spot it.
On the rationale behind S909:
"I've always said that national security is a primary
concern - and based on my own experience [nearly
six years as a Vietnam POW], I've had a lot of time to
consider how important that really is."
On the software industry:
"Frankly, I'm somewhat surprised that the software
industry would be so willing to downplay the dangers
of child porn.... This stuff is out there, and we can't
allow child pornographers to hide by encrypting that
material."
"... I'm astonished that any industry would consider
their priorities to be so important that they override
national security concerns."
On the rival Pro-CODE bill:
"I'm all for Pro-CODE - except for its impact on
national security.
On the future:
"I promise you, now that we've adopted this
legislation, we will sit down and work this out with all
the parties involved. As I've said before, from a
practical standpoint, we can't override a presidential
veto. With this bill, we've established that the
president of the United States has authority over
national security."