From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 02:57:50 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Congress & Crypto: "No compromise" coalition letter
Message-ID: <v03007807b04f0b016319@[168.161.105.141]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



[This "no compromise" letter from ACLU, Eagle Forum, and other groups is
especially important since it's likely that industry groups may sign on to
compromise legislation. Also attached is a Reuters piece on Freeh's news
conference this morning and an excerpt from an E.C. official's talk also
this morning at the National Press Club. --Declan]

**************

An Open Letter to Members of the House Commerce Committee

September 24, 1997

No Domestic Controls, No Compromise on Privacy Protection
by Encryption

We write this letter to urge you to oppose the Oxley-Manton
amendment to H.R. 695, the Security and Freedom through
Encryption (SAFE) Act. While our organizations sometime
disagree emphatically with each other, we are all united in
asking you to oppose any and all attempts to limit the
right of all Americans to get and use whatever encryption
protection we want.

Specifically included among the proposals we urge you to
oppose are provisions like those found in the amendments to
H.R. 695 proposed by the FBI draft, the Intelligence
Committee, and the National Security Committee, and in the
McCain-Kerrey bill (S. 909) in the Senate.  We also urge
you to oppose as well any proposal establishing a legal
structure for key recovery even if temporarily "voluntary,"
any so-called "compromise" provision drawn from
Oxley-Manton or the other specified proposal, and any new
proposal that would limit the availability and use of
strong encryption.

Representatives of our organizations have already informed
Congress of our vigorous opposition to any anti-encryption
legislation.  We take this opportunity to underscore four
key points.

OXLEY-MANTON ATTACKS THE WAY ORDINARY AMERICANS USE
ENCRYPTION.

Without realizing it, ordinary Americans already use
encryption in their everyday lives.  Cordless and cellular
phones, and every digital phone system uses encryption to
protect privacy.  Oxley-Manton would require a backdoor
breech in encryption security distributed, manufactured or
sold after January 31, 2000. Online browsers for the
Internet also use encryption, with a similar backdoor
breech in security required by Oxley-Manton.  Every
computer that uses encryption ñ sometimes with just a
keystroke ñ to protect the contents of sensitive medical,
legal, religious counseling and other files would be
subject to the same Oxley-Manton backdoor breech in
security.

OXLEY-MANTON INCREASES THE LIKELIHOOD OF CRIMINAL ACTIVITY.

The Oxley-Manton amendment and the other proposals would
compel encryption programs to contain a "backdoor" for law
enforcement either by establishing a regime to recover the
keys to the scrambled message or by providing immediate
decoding of the message. The governments own experts,
however, conclude that the backdoor cannot be limited to
law enforcement. Instead, the backdoor makes the encryption
protection vulnerable to attack by prying neighbors,
business competitors, private investigators, and others who
want to profit from illicitly gained information. (See the
May 1996 report of the National Research Council.) A
mother, for example, arranging to pick up her child at day
care ought not have the safety of those arrangements
jeopardized by the Oxley-Manton backdoor breech in
security.

OXLEY-MANTON IGNORES THE FACT THAT LAW ENFORCEMENT IS NOT
PERFECT.

The Oxley-Manton amendment and the other proposals neglect
the fact that law enforcement agencies are human
institutions with some of their people subject to the
frailties common to human nature ñ prejudice, avarice,
arrogance and abuse of power. We need only to recall the
documented abuses of federal agents at Ruby Ridge, in
Filegate, in surveilling civil rights and religious
leaders, in harassing honest taxpayers and law-abiding
businesses ñ as well as those established instances of
police abuse at the local level ñ to understand that
placing unprecedented power in the hands of law enforcement
to violate the peopleís privacy is extremely dangerous.

OXLEY-MANTON MAKES ORDINARY AMERICANS THE SERVANTS OF THE
STATE.

At the core of American political values is the fundamental
concept that individual Americans have certain rights and
that governments are instituted, in the words of the
Declaration of Independence, "to secure these rights." As a
free people, Americans are the masters -- not the servants
-- of the state. Indeed, our constitutional system is
founded on the principle that the people have certain
rights that cannot be violated. The Oxley-Manton amendment
and the other proposals reverse this relationship, making
the governmentís appetite for spying on its citizens the
number one priority while requiring that ordinary Americans
constrict their lives, the protection for their families
and businesses,  in order to accommodate government
surveillance.  In doing so, the Oxley-Manton amendment and
the other proposals betray the essential values of our
democracy.

CONCLUSION

We urge you to stand up for the privacy and security of
Americans by opposing any and all of the provisions of the
Oxley-Manton amendment, the other amendments cited, the
McCain-Kerrey bill and any provision requiring or fostering
the development of a key recovery regime even if presented
initially as "voluntary."  We also urge you to reject any
so-called "compromise" based in whole or part on these
proposals.   Finally, we urge the removal of the
criminalization provision in H.R. 695, the SAFE bill.

Sincerely,

American Civil Liberties Union
Americans for Tax Reform
Eagle Forum
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Privacy International
United States Privacy Council


For more information, please contact:

Donald Haines, Legislative Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union,
202/675-2322; privaclu@aol.com.

James P. Lucier, Jr., Director of Economic Research, Americans for Tax
Reform, 202/785-0266;          lucier@atr.org.

Kris Ardizzone, Executive Director, Eagle Forum, 202/544-0353;
eagleforum@aol.com

David Sobel, Legal Counsel, Electronic Privacy Information Center,
202/544-9240; sobel@epic.org.

===

[An example of how hard the FBI is pressing encryption in the last few
hours before today's vote. This news conference was at 10:30 am today.
--Declan]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Armed with a sealed indictment, U.S.
officials stepped up the pressure today on Mexico's
most violent drug kingpin by offering a $2 million
reward and adding him to the FBI's most wanted list.

Ramon Arellano Felix, 33, the head of security for a
gang run by five brothers, is charged with drug
conspiracy and smuggling in a sealed federal
indictment in San Diego, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh
told a news conference.

[...]

Freeh used the news conference to push legislation,
now before a House committee, giving his agents access
to the keys to commercial encryption devices and
software used to scramble telephone conversations and
computer transmissions. "If a workable national
solution to the encryption problem is not enacted
soon," Freeh said, "we simply will loose our most
effective tool with respect to drug interdiction."

Constantine said in the last 18 months Mexican gangs
have increasingly used encryption, "purchased off the
shelf" in the United States, that is capable of
shielding their communications from most law
enforcement eavesdropping. "If their encryption
succeeds, we would never be able to find out who is in
charge of these organizations," Constantine said.

[...]

===

	NATIONAL PRESS CLUB MORNING NEWSMAKER
	SIR LEON BRITTAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
	NATIONAL PRESS CLUB
	WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1997

	Q     On the electronic commerce issue, is there a likelihood
	there will be a common position on encryption controls of exports,

        imports?

	SIR LEON:  Well, all of these things are currently the subject of
	discussion, and I think it's premature to say where it will end up.

===




-------------------------
Declan McCullagh
Time Inc.
The Netly News Network
Washington Correspondent
http://netlynews.com/