Hyperbole flew hot and heavy during a February 5 hearing on cellular telephone privacy chaired by Louisiana Republican Billy Tauzin. The House Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection held a hearing titled "Is anybody listening? You betcha." Subcommittee members were shocked, just shocked to learn that, according to a hyper-animated Thomas Wheeler (president of the Cellular Telephone Industry Association), Americans are engaged in "electronic stalking" of cellular telephone users. Further details of CSPAN pandering and Ed Markey's (D-MA) Humpty Dumpty imitation ("words mean whatever I want them to mean") elided. Some notable moments: Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL), during a discussion about encryption, called PGP "a darn good program." Jay Kitchen, head of the Personal Communications Industry Association, related an (apocryphal?) story about MI5 requiring 2 Crays to run for 3 days to break a single GSM. Jim Kallstrom, Assistant Director FBI and head of the New York field office, woodenly delivered his (IMHO unfocused) testimony and reported that on the first day of the TWA Flight 800 crash investigation he determined that the news media knew more than they should, so he confiscated the cell phones of the FBI agents and locked them away, under the (reasonable) presumption that reporters were listening to FBI cell phone calls. Jimmy also reiterated the FBI line that their new wiretap requirements were reasonable and necessary to protect American citizens from terrorists. Dan dan@decode.com -- cypherp@decode.com (Dan Veeneman) Cryptography, Security, Privacy BBS +1 410 730 6734 Data/FAX