At 08:57 AM 10/8/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:
Vinnie may think this is "asswipe journalism," but I think it's one of the more interesting and revealing articles we've seen. In fact, it's a pretty good summary of the history of wiretaps, the tension between privacy and surveillance, and the thinking of those pushing for GAK/Key Recovery.
I too was mystified about his reaction to this article. We certainly don't see articles as appropriate as it every day.
At 11:12 PM -0700 10/7/96, Vinnie Moscaritolo wrote:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/examiner/article.cgi?year=1996&month=10&day= 06&ar t Encryption controversy pits life against liberty TOM ABATE EXAMINER COLUMNIST ... "Wiretapping is the main issue," said Stewart Baker, former general counsel of the National Security Agency, the CIA's code-breaking and eavesdroping cousin. [snip]
Having access to a spare set of code-breaking keys "is not a shift in the balance of power," Vatis said. "It's preserving the status quo."
Clearly these folks are talking as if GAK/Key Recovery is mandated for _domestic_ communications.
(I think we'll be seeing some mighty interesting documents and discussions coming out as FOIAs are filed. Just as the FOIAs a few years ago showed the true thinking behind Clipper: the eventual outlawing of non-Clipper alternatives.)
I was happy to see this article describe the case AGAINST wiretapping, using exactly the same arguments that I previously stated. Fortunately, the person quoted as pushing them was identified as a lawyer, which (I hope) will shut down the naysayers around here. The way I see it, an excellent reason to develop the case against wiretapping is to negate down the argument (which this article shows has been used in favor of Clipper) that the "status quo" is somehow an acceptable situation. If we ever get the GAK-supporters in some kind of real debate that they can't walk away from, the moment they claim that Clipper/GAK is merely "maintaining the status quo" we should be prepared to show that the "status quo" was illegitimately adopted, modified from an illegal situation pre-1968, and intended (as the article indicated) to keep the Democrats in power during a time in which they were maintaining the Vietnam war. In addition, a lot has come out in the last decade or two about what the US Government was up to in the 1960's and before, illegal things, so I'd argue that in hindsight that nobody should have embraced wiretapping if they knew the circumstances under which it was promoted. Cointelpro, etc. Bringing up the issue of J. Edgar Hoover in drag might be considered a low blow, but who cares about fighting "fair" if nobody knows what "fair" is? Inform the average citizen of all this, and THEN tell him that the Supreme Court is unlikely to want to admit they were wrong to support wiretaps, and he'll welcome the news that technology is going to shortly provide him with a way to fix this legal problem with a technical solution. At that point, "the status quo" will be looking MIGHTY unacceptable, and we've won the argument. For anybody who wanted to support GAK claiming it was "maintaining the status quo," this will be an argument which is essentially impossible to defeat, particularly in a debate. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com