From: jim@mentat.com (Jim Gillogly)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 10:09:00 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Most elegant wording against privacy/law-enforcement "balance"
Message-ID: <9802070144.AA11833@mentat.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Guy skribis:
> What are the most elegant rebuttals to politicians saying we
> need Key Recovery as a "reasonable balance between the needs of
> law enforcement vs. freedom of crypto"?

I don't know how elegant it is, but here's my response:

Compromising the public's right to privacy gives away not only our own
rights, but those of our descendants.  The government must make an
extraordinary case to justify undermining those rights, and so far it
has not done so.

The most detailed research on the issue is a study by Dorothy Denning
and William Baugh investigating the extent to which crypto has
interfered with law enforcement's ability to get convictions: their
bottom line was that crypto has not in fact interfered: law enforcement
has been able to complete their investigations using other means.
There's no demonstrated need for Government Access to Crypto Keys
(GACK), so there's no need to compromise away our privacy.

	Jim Gillogly
	jim@acm.org