From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@invweb.net>
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 05:10:15 -0700 (PDT)
To: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Subject: Re: Leahy's Crypto Wake-up Call
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980405232651.0089bb10@popd.ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <199804061210.IAA23492@users.invweb.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In <3.0.5.32.19980405232651.0089bb10@popd.ix.netcom.com>, on 04/05/98 
   at 11:26 PM, Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com> said:

>>>  Third, legislation should establish both procedures and 
>>>standards for access by law enforcement to decryption keys 
>>>or decryption assistance for both encrypted communications 
>>>and stored electronic information and only permit such access  upon court
>>>order authorization, with appropriate notice and  other procedural
>>>safeguards;
>>
>>And just *how* do they plan on doing this without either backdoors or
>>escrow??

>Easy, Constitutional, and doesn't need any new legislation -  all you
>need is a warrant or subpoena to tell anybody to produce those records
>and materials they have.
>If they didn't save a recording of their telephone call or email, or
>think the Fifth Amendment reasonably prohibits them
>from being compelled to incriminate themselves,
>then the prosecution doesn't get anything.  No problem,
>and it's worked quite well for 200+ years.

Well call me a cynic but in reading section #3 I take that as to mean
access without the help or cooperation of the person(s) who did the
encryption.

If they are willing to rely on the Constitution then why push for new, and
as you mentioned, unneeded legislation?

I think the rest of this is just window dressing for organizations like
the EFF, et al who are just bursting to make a deal.


I smell a lawyer in the woodpile.

-- 
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William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
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