At 11:40 PM -0800 10/3/96, Jim McCoy wrote:
The recent CDT policy post sez of Clipper III:
This reminds me of the understanding between CIA/NSA and their counterparts in British Intelligence. [...]
While I am not sure that this oft-made claim can actually be proven,
Actually, Bamford documents it in detail in "The Puzzle Palace," 1982. See the sections on the "UKUSA" or "UK-USA" agreement. More recent reports have described how the actual sharing is done in a room at Fort Meade between GCHQ and NSA intercept analysts. The GCHQ guys monitor the U.S. traffic, and then "summarize it" (as per the UK-USA arrangement) for their American counterparts. All strictly according to the letter of the law, such as it is. The practical effect is obvious. (I also heard a report that the telephone Long Lines, built some decades ago, were deliberately routed across Indian reservations in several states--for the purposes of the domestic surveillance laws, Indian reservations have "sovereign nation" status! Same reason the CIA used the Cabazon Band of Indians lands for illegal work.)
it does raise an interesting point: a large amount of communications traffic crosses international boundaries, which country's laws and procedures are to be followed when a "legitimate law enforcement need" is perceived? While Americans have become somewhat disenchanted with
This is a very important point, I think. Given that users have little control over packet routing, mightn't packets get deliberately routed to jurisdictions where the "Global GAK" policies might be interpreted favorably? Suppose encrypted traffic between two American sites actually went by way of a Canadian hop, and Canadian authorities (possibly working for/with NSA) went to the "Trusted Key Authorities" with a _Canadian_ warrant? And so on, including some nations whose notions of "search warrants" bear no resemblance even to our somewhat tattered notions. So much for U.S. Constitutional protections, even in the post-GAK age. --Tim May "The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology." [NYT, 1996-10-02] We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."