From: paul@hawksbill.sprintmrn.com (Paul Ferguson)
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 94 20:18:01 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: (fwd) Latest Cyberwire Dispatch
Message-ID: <9408060354.AA20180@hawksbill.sprintmrn.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



I couldn't recall this already being posted to the list, so
apologies if you've already seen it. As the syaing goes, 
"Be afraid. Be very afraid."

- paul 



Forwarded message:

> From: mech@eff.org (Stanton McCandlish)
> Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
> Subject: Latest Cyberwire Dispatch (fwd)
> Date: 5 Aug 1994 11:18:07 -0500
> Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
> Lines: 186
> Sender: nobody@cs.utexas.edu
> Distribution: inet
> Message-ID: <199408051618.MAA21205@eff.org>
> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.cs.utexas.edu
> 
> [This is just an informational forward, and is not an EFF statement.]
> 
> 
> ****** begin fwd *******
> 
>  CyberWire Dispatch // Copyright (c) 1994 //
>  
>  Jacking in from the "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" Port:
>  
>  Washington, DC --  For months now a kind of high stakes privacy poker has
>  been played out here behind the closed doors of congressional subcommittees
>  as the FBI, telephone industry executives, congressional staffers and civil
>  libertarians have played a kind of five card draw with the privacy of all
>  your future telephone calls, faxes and electronic mail.
>  
>  The betting's all but over now;  Congress has "called" the hand and laid
>  its cards on the table:  A soon to be introduced bill that will mandate
>  --forever -- that all the nation's telephone networks be designed to give
>  the FBI easy wiretap access.  The bill's sponsors, Senator Patrick Leahy
>  (D-Vt.) and Rep. Don Edwards (D- Cal.), have fought through a numbing array
>  of options, opinions and (FBI) obfuscation in order feel comfortable enough
>  to sign their names to a bill that, just years ago, was laughed off Capitol
>  Hill because it was severely flawed.
>  
>  My how time changes things.
>  
>  It's been two years since the FBI first introduced what amounted to an
>  "Easy Wiretap America" bill.  Now we have a new President, a new FBI
>  director and suddenly, a new bill that requires the nation's
>  telecommunications providers to reengineer their facilities so the FBI can
>  do wiretaps easier.
>  
>  The Leahy and Edwards staffs have dumped hundreds of hours of "sweat
>  equity" into this bill, which could be introduced as early as today
>  (Friday) but certainly before next Tuesday.
>  
>  Leahy and Edwards have never been known to tape "kick me" signs on the back
>  of American privacy rights.  The bill that's been hammered out here -- and
>  that phrase isn't used lightly -- by Leahy and Edwards is a damn sight
>  better than the FBI's laughable attempts at drafting legislation.  In fact,
>  it was Leahy and Edwards that stepped into the breach to thwart those early
>  FBI proposals from being passed "as is."
>  
>  An earlier version of this bill, which, among other things, gave the
>  Justice Department the right to shut down any telephone company's network,
>  regardless of size, if they didn't comply with the wiretap statute, was set
>  to be introduced by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), with heavy support from
>  others in congress.  That bill, if introduced, would have passed,
>  congressional sources have said.
>  
>  But the Leahy and Edwards tag team effort took Sen. Biden off the scent.
>  So, we get a more palatable bill.  Call it the "cod liver oil act" of 1994.
>  It tastes horrible, but it's necessary, considering the earlier
>  alternatives.  Without this Leahy/Edwards bill our privacy rights would
>  have really been fucked over.  At least now we get kissed. (Sorry, no
>  tongues.)
>  
>  Still Got The Power
>  ====================
>  
>  A draft copy of the latest bill, obtained by Dispatch, shows that the
>  Justice Department and FBI still have the tools to intimidate and harass
>  the future development of the nation's telecommunications infrastructure.
>  
>  The bill, as it stands, does keep Justice and law enforcement from
>  mandating any "specific design of features or system configurations to be
>  adopted."  But the requirements to build wiretap capability into all public
>  telecommunications carrier systems is steadfast. This means that while the
>  FBI can't expressly tell a company "how to get there," it can definitely
>  say, "just get there."
>  
>  Never again, under the provisions of this bill, will a telecommunications
>  provider be able to develop a service or technology without first and
>  foremost asking the question:  How can I design this so that it pops off
>  the assembly line wiretap ready?
>  
>  Read it again.  The key word there:  Never.
>  
>  There is an "out" however, and it comes thanks to Leahy.  If a new
>  technology doesn't fit with the mandate, that is, if you can't make that
>  new hand held satellite phone wiretap ready and you've made every
>  "reasonable effort" to make it so, it can still be sold. How?
>  
>  "The court can enforce the (wiretap) requirement of this act only if
>  compliance with the act is 'reasonably achievable' through the application
>  of 'available technology,'" said Jeff Ward, director of governmental affair
>  for the Nynex telephone company.
>  
>  Ward -- who says the bill has been an "albatross" around his neck for 2
>  years -- has focused his efforts during this 2 year time frame, on ensuring
>  that such "reasonably achievable" provisions allow telephone industry and
>  equipment makers to be "good corporate citizens."   That is, these
>  companies are required to consider [wiretap] design factors, but if after
>  "due consideration, we can't do it, we've got to be able to proceed."
>  
>  This effort is supported by the bill;  however, it is a court of law that
>  decides what is "reasonable" or not.  Such litigation, brought by Justice
>  no doubt, could tie up a new technology for years while the case is
>  decided, thus giving Justice and the FBI a kind of de facto control over
>  the development of new technologies.
>  
>  Make That Check Out To...
>  =========================
>  
>  Then there's cost.  The FBI insists that the cost to industry to retrofit
>  all their networks will be only $500 million.  But that's a bullshit figure
>  and everyone from FBI Director Louis Freeh to the newest line programmer at
>  AT&T knows it.
>  
>  In fact, so many lines of code will have to be written and maintained to
>  comply with these wiretap mandates that one Internet pioneer, Dave Farber,
>  has called the FBI proposal "the programmers full employment act."
>  
>  Provisions in the bill make it basically a blank check for the FBI. Within
>  the first 4 years, there is $500 million approved to be spent on
>  "upgrading" all the nation's telephone systems to provide law enforcement
>  with easy wiretap access.   There are provisions in the bill that require
>  the government to repay all costs of installing wiretap software throughout
>  all networks forever, with no cap.  What's not clear, however, is what
>  happens when FBI demands for wiretap capability exceed the $500 million
>  mark (and it will) during those first 4 years.
>  
>  Maybe we'll get some answers when this bill (in whatever language is
>  finally passed) is discussed at joint hearings to be held by Leahy and
>  Edwards on it August 11th.
>  
>  Take It or Take It
>  ===================
>  
>  Take it or take it.  Those are your only choices here.  This bill is a slam
>  dunk for passage.  But you didn't lose everything.
>  
>  All electronic systems will be exempt from complying with the bill's
>  mandates.  But hold on before you cheer...
>  
>  This simply means that the FBI can't tap your Email from, say, America
>  Online's computers;  rather, they can do what they've always been allowed
>  to do:  Snag it off the telephone company's central switch.  But at least
>  we don't have the Internet being hung with "FBI:  Tap In Here" signs.
>  
>  Transactional data, Dispatch has been told, will get some beefed up
>  protection.  Just how this language shakes out remains to be seen, however.
>  
>  
>  Yeah, but Can They Count?
>  =========================
>  
>  At the very end of the draft we obtained, the FBI is given a curious
>  additional reporting requirement under its annual wiretap reports.  The
>  addition, in our draft copy, says the Bureau must quantify "the number of
>  interceptions encountering electronically encrypted communications,
>  specifying the number of such interceptions that could not be decrypted."
>  
>  Throughout the history of this bill and the now ignominious Clipper Chip
>  proposal, the FBI has touted the fact that it's investigations are
>  continually stymied by encryption technologies.  Small problem: The Bureau
>  refuses to provide any kind of documentation to back up those claims.
>  
>  At first blush, then, this extra requirement finally means the G- men will
>  have to give us some concrete numbers.   All well and good... *if* that's
>  what this requirement actually is used for.
>  
>  There's potentially a much darker use for these stats... yes, I see all you
>  Crypto-rebels nodding your anxious heads.  You see, such a formal gathering
>  of statistics could be used by the Bureau or... say, the National Security
>  Agency, to "prove" that private encryption schemes are just too great a
>  threat to "catching bad guys."
>  
>  Citing these newly gathered statistics the White House could, one day,
>  order the banning of private encryption methods.   Far fetched you say?
>  
>  Yeah, it's far-fetched... something on the order of, oh, say a bill that
>  mandates telephone companies give the FBI easy access to all conversations
>  from now until forever.
>  
>  Meeks out...
> 
> ******* end ********
> 
> 
> -- 
> <A HREF="http://www.eff.org/~mech/mech.html">       Stanton McCandlish
> </A><HR><A HREF="mailto:mech@eff.org">              mech@eff.org
> </A><P><A HREF="http://www.eff.org/">               Electronic Frontier Fndtn.
> </A><P>   Online Activist       
> 
>