============================================================================ SUBJECT: PRESSURE GROWING ON WHITE HOUSE TO RETHINK CLIPPER CHIP POLICY SOURCE: Inside Washington via Fulfillment by INDIVIDUAL, Inc. DATE: June 30, 1994 INDEX: [5] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- WASHINGTON TELECOM WEEK via INDIVIDUAL, Inc. : The White House came under increased pressure this week to withdraw its controversial Clipper Chip encryption proposal when the policy arm of a major computing society attacked the plan. The U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery (USACM) said in a position paper that "communications security is too important to be left to secret processes and classified algorithms." USACM said that Clipper would put U.S. manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage in the global market and would adversely affect technological development within the United States. A statement by USACM pointed out that the Clipper technology has been championed by the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the National Security Agency. These agencies maintain that "non-escrowed" encryption technology threatens law enforcement and national security. "As a body concerned with the development of government technology policy, USACM is troubled by the process that gave rise to the Clipper initiative," said Barbara Simons, a computer scientist with IBM, in a statement. Simons, who chairs the ACM committee, added that it is "vitally important that privacy protection for communications networks be developed openly and with full public participation. The Clipper Chip, also known as the Escrowed Encryption Standard, raises fundamental policy issues, according to the analysis. After reviewing a new study by the ACM, the USACM makes the following recommendations: - The Administration should withdraw the Clipper Chip proposal and begin an open and public review of encryption policy. The escrowed encryption initiative raises vital issues of privacy, law enforcement, competitiveness and scientific innovation that must be openly discussed. - The Administration should encourage the development of technologies and institutional practices that will provide real privacy for future users of the National Information Infrastructure. - Public policies and technical standards should be developed for communications security in open forums in which all stakeholders -- government, industry and the public -- participate. Because the nation is moving rapidly to open networks, a prerequisite for the success of those networks must be standards for which there is widespread consensus, including international acceptance. "The USACM believes that communications security is too important to be left to secret processes and classified algorithms. We support the principles underlying the Computer Security Act of 1987, in which Congress expressed its preference for the development of open and unclassified security standards." - Any encryption standard adopted by the U.S. government should not place U.S. manufacturers at a disadvantage in the global market or adversely affect technological development within the Untied States. Few other nations are likely to adopt a standard that includes a classified algorithm and keys escrowed with the U.S. government. - Change the process of developing Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) employed by the National Institute of Standards & Technology. This process is currently predicated on the use of such standards solely to support federal procurement. Increasingly, the standards set through the FIPS process directly affect non-federal organizations and the public at large. The USACM said that the vast majority of comments solicited by the National Institute for Standards and Technology opposed the standard but were openly ignored. The standard therefore should be placed under the Administrative Procedures Act so that citizens may have the same opportunity to challenge government actions in the area of information processing as they do in other important aspects of federal agency policymaking. -- Joe Burey [06-30-94 at 17:05 EDT, Copyright 1994, Inside Washington, File: w0630041.6ip]