Re: SAFE forum -- remarks of Herb Lin

[Ernest Hua <hua@XENON.chromatic.com>]

> My experience with the FBI and other law enforcement officials is that
> they are honorable people trying to do a very hard job.

Very good point.  However, their primary representatives are still Louie
Freeh, Jim Kallstom (sp?) and a few others who specialize in
technologically-inaccurate hype.  They have special backdoor access
priviledges to Congress which none of us have (at least on the scale with
which they can summon).  They do NOT have to answer to anyone, except on
warm and fuzzy Congressional hearings during which the technical inaccuracy
of their words are rarely challenged.

I would give a lot to have a public one-on-one discussion/debate with Freeh
or Kallstrom.  The problem is that they will stick to the obvious sound
bites of "child pornographers" and "terrorists" instead of discussing the
technical issues.

I do agree that, if Freeh and cypherpunks would stop the hyperbole, and
start discussing what would help privacy as well as law enforcement, then
much more useful 

If Freeh and Kallstom played fair, and did not insist on behind-the-scene
lobbying for Digital Telephony and GAK, then I might even consider
compromising my hard-line stance against GAK and encryption regulation.
However, they insisted on pushing it even when they could not get enough
public support.

Right now, THEY have the power, THEY have the access, THEY do not have to
answer to us (and the Devil is always in the details), so I think it is a
bit unfair to say that some cypherpunk is being too harsh on the FBI.

They (the FBI) are supposed to serve us.  Instead, they are taking away
our own control of our lives.  It reminds me much of the power-hungry
MIS suit who swoops in and takes away all of our root passwords without
setting up the backups and the firewalls and add to our productivity.

We can get some solutions for both sides, but it takes work, and Freeh and
Kallstrom (and Clinton) cannot get political credits for these more subtle
solutions, so they must choose between highly-visible (but technically
wrong) solutions and real (but possibly thankless) solutions.  I get the
feeling I know what they are choosing right now.

Ern