FBI wants domestic crypto keys

[Alan Olsen <root@nwdtc.com>]

http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,12317,00.html


FBI wants domestic crypto keys 
By Alex Lash
July 10, 1997, 12:45 p.m. PT 

After months on the fence, Federal Bureau of Investigation
director Louis Freeh is making it clear that controlling the
domestic use of encryption software is a greater priority than
limiting its export. 

"Law enforcement is more concerned about the significant and
growing threat to public safety and effective law enforcement
that would be caused by the proliferation and use within the
United States of a communications infrastructure that
supports strong encryption products but cannot support timely
law enforcement decryption," Freeh told the Senate Judiciary
Committee yesterday. 

The director's comments yesterday underline the conflict
within the administration on encryption policy and the
influence the security agencies have on that policy. Other
voices in the administration, including Vice President Al Gore
and an early draft of the White House's e-commerce white
paper, have long insisted that domestic use would remain
unregulated. 

In the hearing convened by committee chairman Orrin Hatch
(R-Utah), Freeh also expressed concern that pending Senate
legislation doesn't go far enough in giving law enforcement
access to encrypted electronic data within U.S. borders. 

"These legislative proposals still do not contain adequate
assurances that the impact on public safety and effective law
enforcement of the widespread availability of encryption will
be addressed," he told the committee. 

Freeh was referring specifically to Senate bill 909, which
mandates domestic key recovery--a technology that gives
access to a user's private keys--for all encryption products
purchased with federal money and for all federally funded
electronic networks. Security officials like Freeh argue that
inaccessible encryption will let criminals communicate on the
Internet without fear of being caught. 

The bill, sponsored by Sens. Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska) and
John McCain (R-Arizona), would also require key recovery
for anyone within the United States using a
government-approved digital certificate. Digital certificates
are ID tags that verify the sender of a communication or
transaction as well as the integrity of the data within. 

"Registration and the use of registered agents and [digital
certificate] authorities are entirely voluntary," Kerrey told the
committee yesterday. 

Because digital certificates are considered necessary to spur
Net-based commerce, critics of the McCain-Kerrey bill argue
that a federal "stamp of approval" program for certificates
creates an environment of mistrust for those who choose not
to participate in the program. Such an environment is bad for
business, critics say, and will make the federal program and
the use of key recovery a de facto standard. 

The bill has already been approved by the Senate Commerce
Committee, and Judiciary might take it up for debate soon. The
bill has not yet been referred to the committee, however, and
no further hearings have been scheduled, according to the
committee press secretary Jeanne Lopatto. 

Opponents of McCain-Kerrey are already taking
unprecedented steps to state their case. The Electronic
Frontier Foundation, an online rights organization, has gone
beyond its usual Net-based advocacy to create a 60-second
radio spot. The commercial urges listeners to contact McCain
and complain about the bill. 

"We feel that if this bill passes it will have an extreme impact
to privacy for the American public in the next 100 years, and
the majority of people walking down the street will never
know what even happened," EFF executive director Lori Fena
told CNET's NEWS.COM. "We're preaching to the choir
already on the Net; it's more effective to reach people in their
cars." 

The radio ad is airing this week during rush-hour drive times
in San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C. The
organization will gauge the volume of response to the ad
before buying more air time, but Fena is encouraged by the
response so far. The nonprofit group has spent "in the low
thousands of dollars" on the advertisements, Fena added.