From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 00:59:35 -0800 (PST)
To: jya@pipeline.com
Subject: sikrit mandatory GAK plans (was Re: Guardian on EU-FBI Wiretap Pact)
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19970228200633.00719d10@pop.pipeline.com>
Message-ID: <199703030855.IAA00133@server.test.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



John Young <jya@pipeline.com> posts an article from UK Gaurdian newspaper:

> The Guardian Weekly, Volume 156, Issue 9
> Week ending March 2, 1997, Page 4:
> 
> UK to join FBI phone taps
> 
> Richard Norton-Taylor and Alison Daniels
> 
> BRITAIN has secretly agreed with its European Union partners to set up
> an international telecommunications tapping system in co-operation
> with the FBI, it was revealed on Monday.
> 
> The agreement covers telephones and written communications -- telexes,
> faxes and e-mail. To make tapping easier, telecommunications companies
> will be obliged to give security and intelligence agencies the key to
> codes installed in equipment sold to private customers.

Sounds like this will cover any communications software or hardware
commercially available.  Looks like mandatory GAK.  It is interesting
that they should target commercial suppliers, rather than users.

Also interesting that they should feel unsure enough about public
opinion to plan it all in secret.

To those who said the US 1st ammendment would prevent this happening
in the US: looks like you were wrong.  Has there been any
corresponding US press on the FBI side of the sikrit GAK plans?

> Detailed plans are being drawn up by officials in a secret network of
> EU committees established under the "third pillar" of the Maastricht
> Treaty, covering co-operation on law and order issues.

Blech.  These people have _no_ respect for democracy, it's all secret
cloak and dagger stuff.  Is that anyway for laws to be decided in
supposedly democratic countries?  Does the public have no right to
affect the introduction of new laws?  I suppose the spooks know better
what's good for us than we do?

> Civil liberties groups, while agreeing that there was a need for such
> an agreement to fight against serious crime, 

Erm which `civil liberties group' agreed that there was a need for
mandatory GAK?

> said the plans raised a number of privacy and data protection issues
> and must be the subject of a full public debate.

To damn right privacy issues are raised, and that the subject should
be open for public debate.

> Britain is an enthusiastic supporter of joint action in this area,
> which is conducted on an inter-governmental basis with no role for the
> European Commission, the European Parliament or the European Court of
> Justice. It is an area where the EU's "democratic deficit" is most
> evident.
> 
> Key points of the plan are outlined in a memorandum of understanding
> signed by EU states in 1995, which is still classified.

Un-fucking-believeable!  Classified documents determining the
_publics_ future right to freedom of speech.  You don't even get to
see the document let alone discuss it.  Signed way back in 1995.

> It reflects increasing concern among European intelligence agencies
> that modern technology will prevent them from tapping private
> communications.  EU governments agreed to co-operate closely with
> the FBI in Washington as they work out detailed plans.

How about someone in the US puts in a FOIA for the FBI half of this?
(At least you guys have a FOIA).

Adam
-- 
print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`