From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 01:06:50 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Watch your language, Shabbir.
Message-ID: <m0u6qZK-0008y1C@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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When the Leahy bill was proposed, BTW was one of the organizations that came out in favor of it.  Despite later substantial criticism and direct contacts, Mr. Safdar never defended his original position on this bill against these objections.  I just saw something which may explain  a bit about VTW's positions:


                               VTW BillWatch #41

       VTW BillWatch: A weekly newsletter tracking US Federal legislation
     affecting civil liberties.  BillWatch is published at the end of every
        week as long as Congress is in session. (Congress is in session)
                   BillWatch is produced and published by the
                 Voters Telecommunications Watch (vtw@vtw.org)
                             (We're not the EFF :-)
                 Issue #41, Date: Wed Apr  3 12:41:46 EST 1996
     Do not remove this banner.  See distribution instructions at the end.
___________________________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
        Introduction from the Editor (Steven Cherry)
        A tragic story about a wiretap (Shabbir J. Safdar)
 [stuff deleted]

A TRAGIC STORY ABOUT A WIRETAP
by Shabbir J. Safdar, VTW Board (New York, NY)

This week most of VTW's staff attended the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy
conference in Cambridge Massachusetts.  I go to the conference every
year to recharge my batteries, put names to faces, and enjoy the synergy that
can only come with face-to-face dialogue.
[stuff deleted]
One, while wiretaps have probably been effective in other cases, they
were not effective in this one.  While we can grant law enforcement the
benefit of the doubt in other cases, the existence of this one shows
that a wiretap is not the "silver bullet" of law enforcement that we
have been led to believe.

Another observation that can be made is that this parallels the key
escrow debate very closely.  No reasonable person is objecting to the
FBI's right to conduct a wiretap.  However what is being debated is the
extent to which individuals and law enforcement can go to accomplish
their duties.  The Clinton Administration is striving for a world where
everyone is forced to speak in a form of encryption that is easily decoded
by law enforcement.  The public and industry is striving for a world where
they continue to have private conversations.
[end of quote]

Look, very carefully, at the last paragraph quoted above.  Mr. Safdar says, 
"No reasonable person is objecting to the FBI's right to conduct a wiretap."

Huh?  "FBI's right"????  Maybe this is a bit too basic for comprehension, 
but governments have no "rights" by any definition I've ever heard.  
"Rights" are the possessions of individuals, and occasionally individuals 
authorize governments to do things.  But that does not mean that those 
governments possess a "right," especially not one on such a flimsy and 
transitory principles as wiretaps.  Government certainly does not possess a 
"right" that supercedes the wishes of the public, or the Constitution.

Safdar's note appears to pre-date my commentary where I pointed out that 
before 1968, wiretaps in America were illegal, but were done anyway simply 
because the cops wanted to.  That doesn't sound like a "right," now, does 
it?  If it were a "right" then it couldn't be given by law, or taken away by 
law.  But nobody I've ever  met claims that the cops aren't at least legally 
obligated to follow the law, whether or not they actually do.

I don't like sloppy rhetoric.  Even worse, claiming that "no reasonable 
person" would object to a non-existent "right" is truly outrageous. I know 
_plenty_ of people  who would claim that the government, and by extension 
the FBI, possesses no "right" to do wiretaps (this position would be echoed 
by essentially every libertarian). I know many people who think that the 
government shouldn't be able to do wiretaps at all. 

VTW's header above claims "We're not the EFF," but it's hard to tell this 
from Mr. Safdar's propaganda.  Now I understand why he didn't defend his 
position on the Leahy bill against criticism.  VTW is sounding more and more 
like "EFF" all the time.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com