From: Anonymous <anon@anon.efga.org>
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 10:12:41 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: GMR in the talked-about form here would be unconstitutional
Message-ID: <6f980666652932da279b9543e8ca48dd@anon.efga.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Tim May wrote:
>Will a "must encrypt to government key" provision pass constitutional
>muster? I don't think so.
> 
>So long as the First and Fourth (and the Fifth may apply, too)
>Amendments remain in force, compelling a person to speak in certain
>ways and monitoring what he says privately without a proper court
>order is unconstitutional.
> 
>At least the convoluted stuff in Clipper about "LEAF" fields,
>splitting of keys between agencies, proper court orders, etc., had
>the "fig LEAF" of protecting some basic constitutional rights. A
>straight "encrypt to the government's key" is too crude to withstand
>any court scrutiny.

In practice it could be implemented as "any government key" where
there are, perhaps, a few thousand to choose from.  Each key is
administered by a small group of "trusted" bureaucrats.

No one person need control the secret key.  There are key splitting
systems so that the key is active only when N number of people insert
their cards into a secure box, for instance.  And, of course, we will
be told that the "trusted" bureaucrats will only collude to decode
messages when a warrant has been issued.

This would be enough to eliminate most of the concerns regarding
warrantless searches for any court which was more sympathetic to GAK
than the Constitution.

As for free speech issues, if certain thoughts and images are illegal,
such as those deemed to be "pornographic", it shouldn't be much harder
to claim that a bunch of bits of the wrong form is actually a
technology issue and unrelated to free speech.  The same goes for
source code.  There are all sorts of rules about what kind of
"technical data" may be exported which are certainly far away from the
original Constitutional vision.

Hopefully, the courts will protect the Constitution if the other two
branches are unwilling to do so.

Monty Cantsin
Editor in Chief
Smile Magazine
http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html
http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQEVAwUBNFEnGpaWtjSmRH/5AQFWXgf+Km1k8RW4qmipiMxu1yjDYRq5TOkdyk6H
o9PJWaRKCMmBzMRSq7efdBpGxHIW7OClwr77mOKPhXGqNz+OTfhkF7RiVnMUTEVG
4lzRZyh1YgEtxGh+vNz1JgUHhUVMb6Ol/Qj8/FtiG4+/1IALPhzlQxASNtDqGFMf
L1kPkHGgKbi0NrDKULRtzO5+tsiuF41BKrE483pcPUjDltUjHlZmMjPwFGy3sGjS
mzQlQUCR6OJ7zOm3s7pXxdOu+q8CWD0OQeF+VdnlhPg+YFra1ZE7ORCYDAP6vk54
C68c7r5ZWoFS8RTKSWdm69LmXYL3GLXose4l2xfOHY0EPnsvyYXtCw==
=6f4R
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----