From: Stanton McCandlish <mech@eff.org>
Date: Thu, 12 May 94 15:35:05 PDT
To: comp-org-eff-talk@cs.utexas.edu (eff.talk)
Subject: Re: NSA Cheif Counsel in Wired (Rebuttal) (fwd)
Message-ID: <199405122234.SAA02438@eff.org>
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Forwarded message:
Subject: Re: NSA Cheif Counsel in Wired (Rebuttal)
Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 14:26:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jeff Davis <eagle@deeptht.armory.com>
To: eff-activists@eff.org (eff-activists mailing list)


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A little further along in the AP story on the record level of Clinton
Administration wire taps, Micheal J. Sniffen states:

	In a section on surveillances completed in 1993, the report said
	the longest and most expensive federal eavesdropping was
	accomplished by a microphone placed inside a New Jersey lawyer's
	office in a racketeering case.  The microphone actually operated
	435 days, overhearing a total of 65 people, at a cost of $517,673.

	...The government said in court, "the purpose of utilizing the law 
	offices ... was to evade electronic surveillance by fraudulently
	creating the appearance that these were legally proper meetings."

This microphone recorded conversations in the office, not the telephone.  As
I stated to Dr. Dorthy Denning of Georgetown University, escrowed encryption
is unnecessary for surveillance.  In addition to "bugs", intellegence agencies
also provide long range listening technology to the enforcement agencies like
the FBI and DEA.  Organized criminals don't use the phone to discuss business,
it can be tapped.

This sort of blows a hole in Stuart Baker's arguments for escrowed encryption
being necessary in law enforcement.  The next time he offends someone with his
tired trig joke, I would hope that he is ask to rebut this.  As well as to 
estimate how many conversations and participants are actually involved in the
given figure of 333 1993 "wiretaps."

Long range listening was found to fall under federal "wiretap" rules in the
Smalldone case in Denver during the summer of 1982.  Try to FOIA that info.



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-- 
PGP PUBLIC KEY via finger!  JAFEFFM  Speaking & Thinking For Myself!
 
* eagle@deeptht.armory.com			email info@eff.org *
*** O U T L A W S  On The  E L E C T R O N I C  F R O N T I E R ****
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-- 
Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist
"In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich
Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of
phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps.
When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it."
- Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994