1997-10-24 - unconstitutional? try this variant…(Re: GMR in the talked-about form here would be unconstitutional)

Header Data

From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
To: tcmay@got.net
Message Hash: c9c352d61524285e5172fe235957c4929bb5a912c260c06c9f76e6299489f5dd
Message ID: <199710241843.TAA05546@server.test.net>
Reply To: <v03102807b07688340782@[207.167.93.63]>
UTC Datetime: 1997-10-24 19:09:52 UTC
Raw Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 03:09:52 +0800

Raw message

From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 03:09:52 +0800
To: tcmay@got.net
Subject: unconstitutional? try this variant...(Re: GMR in the talked-about form here would be unconstitutional)
In-Reply-To: <v03102807b07688340782@[207.167.93.63]>
Message-ID: <199710241843.TAA05546@server.test.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:
> I agree that draconian crypto laws are afoot, but I don't discount the
> power of constitutional challenges.
> 
> So long as the First and Fourth (and the Fifth may apply, too) Amendments
> remain in force, compelling a person to speak in certain ways and
> monitoring what he says privately without a proper court order is
> unconstitutional.
> 
> At least the convoluted stuff in Clipper about "LEAF" fields, splitting of
> keys between agencies, proper court orders, etc., had the "fig LEAF" of
> protecting some basic constitutional rights. A straight "encrypt to the
> government's key" is too crude to withstand any court scrutiny.

The Clipper set up claimed to have split databases.

I wonder.  Secret splitting is being described as a possibility for
pgp6.0.

Perhaps they'll use:

	thoughtpolice1@nsa.gov
	thoughtpolice2@nsa.gov

as the two half GMR fields.  And they'll promise not to combine the
two halves without a court order (except for national security
purposes, of course).  Naturally a court would never violate lawyer
client confidentiality, etc., so they might argue this was
constitutionally ok.

> I'm obviously not a lawyer, let alone a constitutional scholar, but I think
> I'm solid footing here.  A crude, blanket order to include the government
> in all communications would absolutely be struck down as a chilling of
> speech (political or otherwise) and as an unlawful search and seizure of
> one's papers.

An example of a somewhat analogous setup was the digital telephony
wiretapping order.  That was passed.  Not struck down yet (though
floundering because it cost way more money than the Feds claimed it
would).

What about lawyer client confidentiality over telephone?  They would
argue I suppose that you had insufficient expectation of privacy?

Perhaps they would use similar arguments to say that it's not a
problem for the same access to emails.


And anyway, since when has unconstitutionality meant anything to
politicians, law enforcement agents, and spooks.  What about guns,
hmm.  That one was clear enough in the constitution if anything ever
was, and yet the USG is slowly headed the same way as the UK
government.

CDA got struck down which was good, but unconstitutionality doesn't
seem to be adequate protection.

Adam
-- 
Now officially an EAR violation...
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`






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