http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/96/37/special3a.html 12 September 96 HotWired, The Netizen Fear of Flying by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) Washington, DC, 11 September John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, knows firsthand how drastically airports in the United States are altering their policies in response to the nation's perceived vulnerability to terrorists. When Gilmore opened his laptop for inspection by airport personnel at San Francisco International last month - as requested - but refused to turn the machine on, the cops were called. When he then refused to show identification to airport police, "they put the handcuffs on me and hauled me off," he told The Netizen. The cops took Gilmore to a back-room office. "They tried to ask me questions. I said I wanted to speak to my lawyer. They kept asking me questions anyway," he says. Airport police arrested Gilmore even though, according to the FAA, "there is currently no prohibition against allowing someone on an aircraft" without identification. Gilmore's arrest came after President Clinton tightened airport security in response to the TWA Flight 800 disaster and the Atlanta Olympic Games bombing. Now the anti-terrorism drumbeat in the nation's capital is starting again, and it's louder and more ominous than ever. It reached a fevered pitch Monday, when Clinton called for an increase of more than one billion dollars to be spent on anti-terrorism measures, especially airport security. Clinton based his request on the unsurprising recommendations of a commission created by executive order in August, staffed by spooks and headed by Vice President Gore. The group's proposal includes a plan allowing the CIA and FBI to "develop a system" to screen passengers who fit certain profiles as potential terrorists. David Sobel, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, called the White House proposal "a realization of Big Brother concerns people have about computer technology." The proposal would allow the FBI and CIA to couple their databases with those of the airlines. "There are going to be massive databases that will track our actions and activities. If you think of increased capabilities to collect information, it's even scarier," Sobel said. A former US senator agrees. At a Cato Institute terrorism conference yesterday, Malcolm Wallop said: "In the year and a half since the terrorism debate began, all the legislation considered would do little or nothing to stop or deter terrorism. These measures do more to crack down on Americans than terrorists. "A bloody nose does not warrant an exponential expansion of federal government authority," argued Wallop, now the chairman of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute. Over lunch at the conference yesterday afternoon, former CIA director James Woolsey responded with some seemingly gratuitous anti-Net rhetoric. Terrorists may use biological weapons like anthrax, he said. "Anthrax is colorless, odorless, and has a 90 percent lethality. One gram has 100 million lethal doses." Then Woolsey delivered the zinger: "The knowledge of how to make anthrax is widely available, including on the Internet." Not content to let bad enough alone, Woolsey added that the government can't allow netizens to use data-scrambling software like Pretty Good Privacy that the spooks can't break. He said the threat of terrorism will "require us to have a key escrow system" where keys "for complex algorithms [will] be placed in such a way that the government" will have access to them. "You can accommodate industry a lot, but the principle is: you got to get to the key," Woolsey said. (FBI director Louis Freeh made similar, though less straightforward, comments during Senate hearings in July.) Before Congress adjourns for the fall recess, the House must decide whether to approve a "digital telephony" domestic wiretapping slush fund into which the NSA and CIA can pour cash. Senators will then likely add provisions for warrantless wiretaps to the anti-terrorism bill that the House sent to them in August. The fundamental problem here is, of course, the politics of terrorism. Legislators routinely grandstand atop national tragedies, using victims and their families as backdrops. Justice Department lobbyists then swarm onto Capitol Hill and demand reduced civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. Societies can, and should, safeguard against systematic threats. Random acts of violence, on the other hand, are trickier to forestall - and terrorist acts are anything but predictable. Luckily for the EFF's Gilmore, he was cited only for the crime of "delaying/obstructing a peace officer" and was released after being handcuffed to a bench and then dumped in a holding cell for a few hours. He got off easy. But if Congress decides to sacrifice freedom for security, the country will ultimately enjoy neither. ###