An Attempt to Hobble SAFE Crypto Bill

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 11:03:33 -0800
From: "--Todd Lappin-->" <telstar@wired.com>
To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu


http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/5492.html


An Attempt to Hobble House Crypto Bill

 by Rebecca Vesely

 9:08am  25.Jul.97.PDT A Republican opponent of a House
 bill that would loosen controls on the use and export of
 encryption is circulating an amendment that would
 effectively cripple the legislation.

 The amendment, by Representative Benjamin Gilman
 (R-New York), who chairs the International Relations
 Committee, would make it unlawful to "manufacture,
 distribute, sell, or import any product within the United
 States that can be used to encrypt communications or
 information if the product does not permit the real-time
 decryption of such encrypted communications or
 information."

 This means that if law-enforcement officials could not
 crack an encrypted file within 24 hours - the time that FBI
 director Louis Freeh and other law enforcement officials
 say is reasonable for accessing information related to a
 crime - that strength of encryption would be illegal. The
 amendment set a civil penalty of US$100,000 for such
 violations.

 Currently, the most complex programs that can be cracked
 so quickly use 40-bit algorithms. The relative ease of
 breaking such code makes it nearly worthless on the
 marketplace, the high-tech industry has warned. Stronger
 encryption - 56-bit and 128-bit algorithms are being
 employed in many products now - is widely viewed as a
 cornerstone to the development of electronic commerce.
 Stronger code can safeguard data such as credit-card
 numbers as it travels over networks.

 Gilman had the amendment in hand earlier this week when
 his panel marked up the Security and Freedom through
 Encryption Act by Representative Bob Goodlatte
 (R-Virginia). The bill has been condemned by the
 government's chief law-enforcement and national-security
 officials because it would prevent domestic controls on
 encryption while relaxing export controls. The FBI and
 National Security Agency want a domestic key-recovery
 system to wiretap digital communications.

 Gilman was unsuccessful in trying to insert another
 provision during the mark-up - one to give the president
 the power to deny crypto export licenses on
 national-security grounds.

 "The second amendment was a staff proposal that basically
 was dependent on what happened to the first amendment,"
 said Jerry Lipson, spokesman for the House International
 Relations Committee. "There was no sentiment that this one
 should be introduced when the first one failed."

 A staffer for a congressman who supports the Goodlatte bill
 said that the new amendment was a "scare tactic" meant to
 show committee members that law enforcement won't stand
 for a relaxed approach to encryption policy. Indeed, FBI
 director Freeh met one-on-one with 10 International
 Relations panel members for hour-long sessions in the days
 before the mark-up, the staffer said. Nine of the 10 voted
 for the bill anyway.

 Some staffers and observers suggest that the Gilman
 amendment could be introduced when the bill goes to the
 Select Committee on Intelligence. Although the legislation
 has 214 co-sponsors in the House, none are members of
 that panel. And the bill still must reach two other
 committees before it goes to a full House vote: Commerce
 and National Security. The deadline for all committees to
 address the bill is 5 September.

"They don't draft amendments like this for the heck of it,"
 said Alan Davidson, staff counsel for the Center for
 Democracy and Technology. "It's a glimpse at what could be a
 very frightening future."


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