When the Leahy bill was proposed, BTW was one of the organizations that came out in favor of it. Despite later substantial criticism and direct contacts, Mr. Safdar never defended his original position on this bill against these objections. I just saw something which may explain a bit about VTW's positions: VTW BillWatch #41 VTW BillWatch: A weekly newsletter tracking US Federal legislation affecting civil liberties. BillWatch is published at the end of every week as long as Congress is in session. (Congress is in session) BillWatch is produced and published by the Voters Telecommunications Watch (vtw@vtw.org) (We're not the EFF :-) Issue #41, Date: Wed Apr 3 12:41:46 EST 1996 Do not remove this banner. See distribution instructions at the end. ___________________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction from the Editor (Steven Cherry) A tragic story about a wiretap (Shabbir J. Safdar) [stuff deleted] A TRAGIC STORY ABOUT A WIRETAP by Shabbir J. Safdar, VTW Board (New York, NY) This week most of VTW's staff attended the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in Cambridge Massachusetts. I go to the conference every year to recharge my batteries, put names to faces, and enjoy the synergy that can only come with face-to-face dialogue. [stuff deleted] One, while wiretaps have probably been effective in other cases, they were not effective in this one. While we can grant law enforcement the benefit of the doubt in other cases, the existence of this one shows that a wiretap is not the "silver bullet" of law enforcement that we have been led to believe. Another observation that can be made is that this parallels the key escrow debate very closely. No reasonable person is objecting to the FBI's right to conduct a wiretap. However what is being debated is the extent to which individuals and law enforcement can go to accomplish their duties. The Clinton Administration is striving for a world where everyone is forced to speak in a form of encryption that is easily decoded by law enforcement. The public and industry is striving for a world where they continue to have private conversations. [end of quote] Look, very carefully, at the last paragraph quoted above. Mr. Safdar says, "No reasonable person is objecting to the FBI's right to conduct a wiretap." Huh? "FBI's right"???? Maybe this is a bit too basic for comprehension, but governments have no "rights" by any definition I've ever heard. "Rights" are the possessions of individuals, and occasionally individuals authorize governments to do things. But that does not mean that those governments possess a "right," especially not one on such a flimsy and transitory principles as wiretaps. Government certainly does not possess a "right" that supercedes the wishes of the public, or the Constitution. Safdar's note appears to pre-date my commentary where I pointed out that before 1968, wiretaps in America were illegal, but were done anyway simply because the cops wanted to. That doesn't sound like a "right," now, does it? If it were a "right" then it couldn't be given by law, or taken away by law. But nobody I've ever met claims that the cops aren't at least legally obligated to follow the law, whether or not they actually do. I don't like sloppy rhetoric. Even worse, claiming that "no reasonable person" would object to a non-existent "right" is truly outrageous. I know _plenty_ of people who would claim that the government, and by extension the FBI, possesses no "right" to do wiretaps (this position would be echoed by essentially every libertarian). I know many people who think that the government shouldn't be able to do wiretaps at all. VTW's header above claims "We're not the EFF," but it's hard to tell this from Mr. Safdar's propaganda. Now I understand why he didn't defend his position on the Leahy bill against criticism. VTW is sounding more and more like "EFF" all the time. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com