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(fwd) Latest Cyberwire Dispatch
I couldn't recall this already being posted to the list, so
apologies if you've already seen it. As the syaing goes,
"Be afraid. Be very afraid."
- paul
Forwarded message:
> From: [email protected] (Stanton McCandlish)
> Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
> Subject: Latest Cyberwire Dispatch (fwd)
> Date: 5 Aug 1994 11:18:07 -0500
> Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
> Lines: 186
> Sender: [email protected]
> Distribution: inet
> Message-ID: <[email protected]>
> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.cs.utexas.edu
>
> [This is just an informational forward, and is not an EFF statement.]
>
>
> ****** begin fwd *******
>
> CyberWire Dispatch // Copyright (c) 1994 //
>
> Jacking in from the "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" Port:
>
> Washington, DC -- For months now a kind of high stakes privacy poker has
> been played out here behind the closed doors of congressional subcommittees
> as the FBI, telephone industry executives, congressional staffers and civil
> libertarians have played a kind of five card draw with the privacy of all
> your future telephone calls, faxes and electronic mail.
>
> The betting's all but over now; Congress has "called" the hand and laid
> its cards on the table: A soon to be introduced bill that will mandate
> --forever -- that all the nation's telephone networks be designed to give
> the FBI easy wiretap access. The bill's sponsors, Senator Patrick Leahy
> (D-Vt.) and Rep. Don Edwards (D- Cal.), have fought through a numbing array
> of options, opinions and (FBI) obfuscation in order feel comfortable enough
> to sign their names to a bill that, just years ago, was laughed off Capitol
> Hill because it was severely flawed.
>
> My how time changes things.
>
> It's been two years since the FBI first introduced what amounted to an
> "Easy Wiretap America" bill. Now we have a new President, a new FBI
> director and suddenly, a new bill that requires the nation's
> telecommunications providers to reengineer their facilities so the FBI can
> do wiretaps easier.
>
> The Leahy and Edwards staffs have dumped hundreds of hours of "sweat
> equity" into this bill, which could be introduced as early as today
> (Friday) but certainly before next Tuesday.
>
> Leahy and Edwards have never been known to tape "kick me" signs on the back
> of American privacy rights. The bill that's been hammered out here -- and
> that phrase isn't used lightly -- by Leahy and Edwards is a damn sight
> better than the FBI's laughable attempts at drafting legislation. In fact,
> it was Leahy and Edwards that stepped into the breach to thwart those early
> FBI proposals from being passed "as is."
>
> An earlier version of this bill, which, among other things, gave the
> Justice Department the right to shut down any telephone company's network,
> regardless of size, if they didn't comply with the wiretap statute, was set
> to be introduced by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), with heavy support from
> others in congress. That bill, if introduced, would have passed,
> congressional sources have said.
>
> But the Leahy and Edwards tag team effort took Sen. Biden off the scent.
> So, we get a more palatable bill. Call it the "cod liver oil act" of 1994.
> It tastes horrible, but it's necessary, considering the earlier
> alternatives. Without this Leahy/Edwards bill our privacy rights would
> have really been fucked over. At least now we get kissed. (Sorry, no
> tongues.)
>
> Still Got The Power
> ====================
>
> A draft copy of the latest bill, obtained by Dispatch, shows that the
> Justice Department and FBI still have the tools to intimidate and harass
> the future development of the nation's telecommunications infrastructure.
>
> The bill, as it stands, does keep Justice and law enforcement from
> mandating any "specific design of features or system configurations to be
> adopted." But the requirements to build wiretap capability into all public
> telecommunications carrier systems is steadfast. This means that while the
> FBI can't expressly tell a company "how to get there," it can definitely
> say, "just get there."
>
> Never again, under the provisions of this bill, will a telecommunications
> provider be able to develop a service or technology without first and
> foremost asking the question: How can I design this so that it pops off
> the assembly line wiretap ready?
>
> Read it again. The key word there: Never.
>
> There is an "out" however, and it comes thanks to Leahy. If a new
> technology doesn't fit with the mandate, that is, if you can't make that
> new hand held satellite phone wiretap ready and you've made every
> "reasonable effort" to make it so, it can still be sold. How?
>
> "The court can enforce the (wiretap) requirement of this act only if
> compliance with the act is 'reasonably achievable' through the application
> of 'available technology,'" said Jeff Ward, director of governmental affair
> for the Nynex telephone company.
>
> Ward -- who says the bill has been an "albatross" around his neck for 2
> years -- has focused his efforts during this 2 year time frame, on ensuring
> that such "reasonably achievable" provisions allow telephone industry and
> equipment makers to be "good corporate citizens." That is, these
> companies are required to consider [wiretap] design factors, but if after
> "due consideration, we can't do it, we've got to be able to proceed."
>
> This effort is supported by the bill; however, it is a court of law that
> decides what is "reasonable" or not. Such litigation, brought by Justice
> no doubt, could tie up a new technology for years while the case is
> decided, thus giving Justice and the FBI a kind of de facto control over
> the development of new technologies.
>
> Make That Check Out To...
> =========================
>
> Then there's cost. The FBI insists that the cost to industry to retrofit
> all their networks will be only $500 million. But that's a bullshit figure
> and everyone from FBI Director Louis Freeh to the newest line programmer at
> AT&T knows it.
>
> In fact, so many lines of code will have to be written and maintained to
> comply with these wiretap mandates that one Internet pioneer, Dave Farber,
> has called the FBI proposal "the programmers full employment act."
>
> Provisions in the bill make it basically a blank check for the FBI. Within
> the first 4 years, there is $500 million approved to be spent on
> "upgrading" all the nation's telephone systems to provide law enforcement
> with easy wiretap access. There are provisions in the bill that require
> the government to repay all costs of installing wiretap software throughout
> all networks forever, with no cap. What's not clear, however, is what
> happens when FBI demands for wiretap capability exceed the $500 million
> mark (and it will) during those first 4 years.
>
> Maybe we'll get some answers when this bill (in whatever language is
> finally passed) is discussed at joint hearings to be held by Leahy and
> Edwards on it August 11th.
>
> Take It or Take It
> ===================
>
> Take it or take it. Those are your only choices here. This bill is a slam
> dunk for passage. But you didn't lose everything.
>
> All electronic systems will be exempt from complying with the bill's
> mandates. But hold on before you cheer...
>
> This simply means that the FBI can't tap your Email from, say, America
> Online's computers; rather, they can do what they've always been allowed
> to do: Snag it off the telephone company's central switch. But at least
> we don't have the Internet being hung with "FBI: Tap In Here" signs.
>
> Transactional data, Dispatch has been told, will get some beefed up
> protection. Just how this language shakes out remains to be seen, however.
>
>
> Yeah, but Can They Count?
> =========================
>
> At the very end of the draft we obtained, the FBI is given a curious
> additional reporting requirement under its annual wiretap reports. The
> addition, in our draft copy, says the Bureau must quantify "the number of
> interceptions encountering electronically encrypted communications,
> specifying the number of such interceptions that could not be decrypted."
>
> Throughout the history of this bill and the now ignominious Clipper Chip
> proposal, the FBI has touted the fact that it's investigations are
> continually stymied by encryption technologies. Small problem: The Bureau
> refuses to provide any kind of documentation to back up those claims.
>
> At first blush, then, this extra requirement finally means the G- men will
> have to give us some concrete numbers. All well and good... *if* that's
> what this requirement actually is used for.
>
> There's potentially a much darker use for these stats... yes, I see all you
> Crypto-rebels nodding your anxious heads. You see, such a formal gathering
> of statistics could be used by the Bureau or... say, the National Security
> Agency, to "prove" that private encryption schemes are just too great a
> threat to "catching bad guys."
>
> Citing these newly gathered statistics the White House could, one day,
> order the banning of private encryption methods. Far fetched you say?
>
> Yeah, it's far-fetched... something on the order of, oh, say a bill that
> mandates telephone companies give the FBI easy access to all conversations
> from now until forever.
>
> Meeks out...
>
> ******* end ********
>
>
> --
> <A HREF="http://www.eff.org/~mech/mech.html"> Stanton McCandlish
> </A><HR><A HREF="mailto:[email protected]"> [email protected]
> </A><P><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/"> Electronic Frontier Fndtn.
> </A><P><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/~mech/a.html"> Online Activist </A>
>
>