Fireworks expected, missed at Senate crypto hearing

[declan@well.com (Declan McCullagh)]

Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 21:05:31 -0500
To: fight-censorship+@andrew.cmu.edu
From: declan@well.com (Declan McCullagh)
Subject: Fireworks expected, missed at Senate crypto hearing
Sender: owner-fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Precedence: bulk

Contrary to the Reuters report excerpted below, there weren't any fireworks
at today's ProCODE crypto hearing before the full Senate Commerce committee
-- at least during the first panel when the spooks testified. (I skipped
out before the second, which had industry folks.)

Just more of the same, though we heard less about child pornographers and
more about terrorists. And Sen. Slate Gorton (R-Wash) jumped on the
committee staff for leaning too far *away* from national security interests
in their summary of the legislation.

Most amusing point: Sen. Larry Pressler waved a copy of the floppy with the
_Applied Cryptography_ source and couldn't remember what it was called.
"Um, I can't export, um, this, um," he mumbled. "Cassette," he decided it
was. (Even his committee staffers smirked at that.)

The FBI's Louis Freeh kept mouthing the same tired old line: "No reasonable
person can envision a lawless information superhighway. It was never meant
to be that. We need cops there, as we need them elsewhere. The problem is
the proliferation of unbreakable encryption." He said it's "not too late"
to stop the spread.

After the first panel ended, a gaggle of a half-dozen camera crews waylaid
Freeh in the hallway outside. The FBI director fled down the stairs. The
crews split into teams. Half took the elevator and half pursued on foot.
Downstairs, Freeh shot through the security checkpoint into the safety of a
waiting Chevy Suburban.

Why were they dogging the guy? They didn't care about crypto -- they wanted
a comment about the TWA flight, and Freeh wasn't talking. He didnt' mention
it at all during the hearing...

-Declan

--------------------

Fireworks Expected at Encryption Hearing
July 25, 1996

         WASHINGTON (Reuter) - After sailing through two quiet
subcommittee hearings, a bill to relax restrictions on computer
encoding faces a much choppier ride before the full Senate
Commerce Committee on Thursday.
         The committee will hear from some of the Clinton
administration's big guns on crime and national security,
including FBI Director Louis Freeh and William Crowell, deputy
director of the National Security Agency.
         Software manufacturers and some in Congress argued at
earlier hearings that current export restrictions on encryption
programs -- which code and decode information -- cost American
companies billions in lost sales overseas.

[...]

         Senate bill 1726, the Promotion of Commerce Online in the
Digital Era Act of 1996, would abolish most export restrictions
and prohibit mandatory key escrow. Vice President Al Gore told
reporters at a press conference July 12 that the proposal, known
as the ``pro-code'' bill, is ``unacceptable.''

[...]

         Clinton administration officials have said they favor
less radical reform. Officials are expected to reject the
conclusions of a study released in May by the National Research
Council. The council concluded that encryption export
restrictions should be relaxed and rejected key escrow as
unworkable.

[...]