The EFF's justification/analyis of DTB says:
Today Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Representative Don Edwards (D-CA) introduced their version of Digital Telephony legislation. Since 1992, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been successful at stopping a series of FBI Digital Telephony proposals, which would have forced communications companies to install wiretap capability into every communications medium. However, earlier this year, Senator Leahy and Rep. Edwards, who have helped to quash previous FBI proposals, concluded that the passage of such a bill was inevitable this year. To head off passage of the FBI's bill, Leahy and Edwards stepped in to draft a narrow bill, and asked for EFF's help in the process. EFF remains deeply troubled by the prospect of the federal government forcing communications networks to be made "wiretap ready," but we believe that the legislation introduced today is substantially less intrusive that the original FBI proposals.
"Although we do not support the concept of digital telephony legislation, we believe that if Congress is to pass any version of the bill this year, it should be along the lines of the Leahy/Edwards version," said Berman.
On the Hill yesterday, Don Edwards (D-CA) and house side sponsor of the bill said that without Jerry's help, there would be no bill. (Someone at EPIC or EFF should have the exact quote wording, but I've got the meaning here.) If they are against it, why are they crafting and creating it? But this is straying from the creed. I'm off to try Phil's DES code under MS's 32 bit C++ compiler. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell@cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>